Creamy Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo Recipe

If you love a rich and velvety Alfredo sauce but thought those days were gone now that you're vegan, think again. This creamy vegan fettuccine Alfredo recipe is made with a silky, cashew-based sauce and the perfect seasonings to make every bite satisfying and delicious. It's quick enough to make on a weeknight and elegant enough to serve when you're entertaining. It pairs well with a simple green salad, a blended spinach soup, or steamed asparagus.

Wellness coach and recipe developer Miriam Hahn brings us this recipe and says, "Growing up in an Italian family, pasta was a very common meal, and fettuccine Alfredo was always reserved for fancier occasions. The traditional version tends to be heavier compared to this lighter, healthier option. It is always a home run when I make this recipe, whether it's for my family or guests." Keep reading to learn how to whip up a vegan meal that even your meat-eating friends will love.

To make this recipe, start in the produce aisle and grab onion, garlic, lemon, and curly parsley. For the creamy sauce, you'll need raw cashews, olive oil, vegetable broth, unsweetened soy milk, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper. We're using raw cashews here that haven't been roasted or salted. These will give us the creaminess we're looking for. Lastly, you'll need some fettuccine.

Cover the cashews with boiling water and let sit for 30 minutes.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil for the pasta.

Add the oil to a medium frying pan and bring the heat to medium-high.

Add the onion and garlic and saute for 8 minutes, stirring frequently.

Drain the cashews and add them to a blender with the broth.

Blend until smooth.

Add the onion-garlic mixture, soy milk, nutritional yeast, miso paste, lemon juice, and salt to the blender and blend again.

Add the fettuccine to the boiling water and cook according to the package directions, then drain.

Toss the sauce with the pasta.

Top with the parsley and black pepper, and serve.

Miso paste is full of umami, savory, and salty flavor, and this rich taste adds depth to pasta dishes, soups, marinades, and sauces. There are three types of miso — white, yellow, and red. The white is the mildest, the red the strongest, and the yellow is in between.

Miso paste is made from fermented soybeans, making it full of natural probiotics, vitamins, and minerals. Sometimes grains like rice or barley are used in the mix, so if you are gluten-free, you'll want to check the label. Commonly used in Japan, this valuable seasoning is helpful to use in plant-based recipes to replace the richness of animal-based products. You'll find it in many recipes like this mushroom miso pasta, and this caramelized sweet potato soup.

In this recipe, the miso enhances the cashews; together, they provide the cheese flavor in a healthier, more natural form than a premade vegan Parmesan cheese. Miso paste has a long shelf life due to the high salt content and can be stored in the fridge for up to a year.

There are several ways to modify the recipe using ingredients that you have on hand or prefer. If you want to make this recipe nut-free, one solution is to use sunflower seeds in place of the cashews. You will soak them in the same manner. Just be sure to use unroasted and unsalted sunflower seeds. Another option is to substitute the cashews with silken tofu. Use a 16-ounce block of tofu and drain the excess water before using.

For the soy milk, you can substitute other types of plant-based milk. Canned coconut milk will offer a thicker and richer option. Unsweetened coconut milk, flax milk, oat milk, or almond milk are all good options. We use white miso paste in this recipe, but other varieties work fine. If you want to omit the miso paste, use 1 tablespoon of tamari soy sauce instead to capture that umami flavor.

Instead of the nutritional yeast, you can substitute in a pre-made vegan Parmesan. Finally, you can use any type of pasta for this recipe, whether it's a small macaroni, another long noodle like spaghetti, or a tube pasta like ziti or rigatoni.