Alfredo Sauce served over Noodles (Healthy Version)
This meal holds a special place in my heart. When I served it to my husband the first time I didn’t know if he liked it or not. He just ate in silence. I thought he hated it and was just trying to think of a nice way to say it. But it turns out I was really wrong.
After he ate it he told me he loved this meal and it was one of the best I had ever made. Jeremy also said if I could make meals like this then he would switch to a plant based diet without complaining. My heart skipped a beat and I felt a little more confident in my cooking abilities.
I will have to admit before switching to this healthier eating I had relied on cooking with butter, heavy creams, fats, salts, and sugars to make my cooking taste good. Now I was having to learn to cook with spices and real whole foods. It was a new adventure for sure, but seeing him finally happy with a meal that was healthy was very rewarding!
It was this meal that spurred me to create my facebook page (which then turned into a website thanks to my incredibly talented husband). I wanted to show and encourage people and families to add in a few plant based meals to their weekly meal plans. I knew that if people could replace some meat with plant based protein that their wallets would be healthier as well as their bodies. When I was eating meat I would have loved to add in a few meatless meals, but I thought meatless meant tofu and salads, or food that tasted like cardboard. After the success with the Alfredo sauce I wanted to share my passion for great tasting healthy plant based meals with others.
I love this meal for other reasons too. Alfredo sauce with anything in it has always been one of my favorite meals. If it was on the menu at a restaurant I would always order it. The problem with most Alfredo sauces is they are very high in calories and fats. They might taste great but you are going to pay for it! Some Alfredo sauce can have upwards of 800 calories a cup ( the lower fat ones run around 400-500 calories), this alfredo recipe is around 200 (depending on what you put in addition to the sauce). That’s a big difference!
This Alfredo Sauce recipe also introduced me to cooking with wine which is a first for me too. I had always been a little intimidated by cooking with wine but this recipe helped me overcome that. The white wine really makes this dish amazing, so try not to leave it out if you can. If you don’t want to cook with wine for any certain reason I am assuming you could google substitutions for white wine.
Another great thing about this Alfredo Sauce recipe is you can easily tailor it to your family’s likes and dislikes or to whatever you have on hand. (You will see this theme in my recipes a lot- I love recipes that are easy to tailor to my family). When I made this Alfredo Sauce recipe for this blog past I had a red bell pepper that I needed to use up, some mushrooms, and some broccoli in the fridge. Whatever you like veggie wise, use it. I have thrown in kale, spinach, red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, onions, and zucchini before and loved it. This sauce makes almost any vegetable taste great!
This recipe uses nutritional yeast flakes. If you don’t know what that is click here- The Fat Free Vegan explains it great! I get mine my local co-op store, or at Earth Fare. If you are lucky enough to live close to a Whole Foods they have it. Its usually in the bins that you just scoop out of . (If you can’t find it ask a knowledgeable employee)
One of the first things you will need to do to get ready for this recipe is make your cashew cream.I promise this is easy to do! All you have to do is soak some raw cashews in water for a couple of hours. If you have a really nice and powerful blender you will not have to soak your cashews very long. I just have a regular blender so I let mine soak for at least 2 hours. I soak mine right in the blender, no need to dirty up another dish if you don’t have to! After you blend it a couple of times it will look like the picture below.
(For specific amounts please see full recipe)
While I am making the cashew cream I start my oil in my pan for the vegetables I will be using in the sauce. I like to blend the cashew cream and then give my blender a break so it doesn’t die on me. But it needs several really good blending sessions to come out right. If it has a grainy texture to your sauce you didn’t blend it long enough.
Once the vegetables are done sauteing you add in the cashew cream and follow the rest of the recipe.
To plate this meal I put a bed of noodles down and then I put the steamed broccoli on top of that.
Pour your sauce over the noodles and broccoli and enjoy! Serve this meal with a nice green salad and you have a wonderful meal!
Are you ready to try the recipe?
Click the this link to go to the full recipe – CREAMY AND RICH VEGAN ALFREDO SAUCE (*watch the video, it really helps!)
We hope you will give this recipe a try! Let us know what you think when you do!
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