vegan carbonara with zucchini cream sauce
A classic Italian dish turned vegan with all the creamy goodness and none of the guilt!
Servings 2
Ingredients
- 225 g spaghetti
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 small zucchini, peeled and roughly chopped
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 5 garlic cloves
- ½ C finely chopped or crumbled smokey vegan meat substitute (vegan ham, smoked tofu, my tofu bacon bits, or vegan sausage)
- 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 3 tablespoon pickle brine
- ⅓ C unsweetened nondairy milk
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¾ teaspoon kala namak/black salt
- ½ C shredded vegan parmesan
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook spaghetti to al dente. Drain but do not rinse.
- Ensure all the green skin is peeled from the zucchini to ensure you have a white coloured sauce. Sauté zucchini and garlic cloves in a pan with 1 teaspoon of olive oil for about 8 to 10 minutes until soft and cooked through.
- Add cooked zucchini to a high powered blender with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, nutritional yeast, pickle brine, nondairy milk, and ground black pepper. Blend until very smooth and creamy.
- In the same pan, brown up your vegan meat substitute over medium heat. Once crispy and golden brown, reduce the heat to low, add the spaghetti and all the sauce and toss to combine well. Ensure it's heated through to your liking before adding kala namak, as you don't want to heat this up much. Add kala namak and more ground black pepper to taste if you like, just toss until combined and then turn off the heat.
- Serve immediately and add vegan parmesan on top and more ground black pepper if desired.
