Alfredo sauce is even better when it’s Vegan Avocado Alfredo Sauce! Rich and buttery without butter, this pasta sauce is a breeze to blend up with healthy ingredients.
The inspiration
When I was a teen, the one dish I always ordered, if it was on the menu, was Fettuccine Alfredo. The form of pasta didn’t actually matter to me; I was after that rich, buttery, garlicky sauce. When I became vegan, I resigned myself to an alfredo-free life.
But one night, I was making Somer McCowan of VedgedOut.com‘s “Fresh Moxarella Cheese” one evening, I tasted it before it thickened and it reminded me a lot of the alfredo sauce. It was weeks before I attempted to adapt her recipe by leaving out some thickening ingredients. The result was poured onto fresh handmade pasta and was pretty good. But I could taste where I could tweak it even more.
But for some reason, I left pasta off the grocery list for many more weeks. Until yesterday. I had been dreaming about making vegan fettuccine alfredo for days. Actually, more like dreaming about EATING it. Only this time with the buttery richness of avocado.
How to Make Vegan Avocado Alfredo Sauce
I wanted to keep it all very simple. So I took all the ingredients and just put them in a blender. Easy peasy.
Well actually, I blended the cashews in hot water first. Just to make sure it could get smooth enough in the old Magic Bullet I was using. Blending everything at once would work with a conventional blender (my $40 Oster, no high-powered blender necessary) but I was in no mood to wash a blender out later.
I was surprised that the avocado didn’t make the sauce as green as I had imagined, so I blended in a little kale for color. Then, it all went into a sauce pan on medium heat. It took about five minutes until it started to bubble and get thick. The taste was awesome but I could tell the tapioca starch hadn’t fully cooked as it was a tiny bit grainy. It took two more minutes with constant stirring before the texture became perfectly smooth.
The last step was tossing in some cooked pasta and topping it with steamed kale, sauteed onions and vegan ham. I used penne instead of fettuccine as it was on sale at the store 😀 The combined result was creamy, buttery, and absolutely delicious! I can tell already that this is going in my regular meal plan rotation.
I hope you enjoy this easy vegan recipe for alfredo sauce! Let me know if you decide to try it!
Printable recipe for Vegan Avocado Alfredo Sauce
Vegan Avocado Alfredo Sauce Recipe
An easy buttery alfredo sauce that is healthy and vegan! It is loaded with healthy fats from avocado and cashews and brightened with fresh lemon juice. This recipe makes enough sauce to drench 4 servings of cooked pasta.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup cashews
- 1 cup hot water
- 1/2 medium sized avocado
- 2 tablespoons tapioca flour or cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon olive oil (optional)
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1-2 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional)
Instructions
- Blend the cashews and hot water until completely smooth.
- Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth.
- Transfer to a saucepan and heat on medium, stirring constantly for about 7 minutes.
- Sauce is ready when thick and barely bubbling.
- Add pepper and/or additional salt to taste.
Notes
For extra color, you can blend in a 1/4 cup of raw kale to the mix.
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[…] I first wrote about this amazingly easy cheese recipe when I decided to have an entire weekend dedicated to pizza. Since then, I have been making this recipe, with some variations, almost every week. I put it on everything from pizza, to lasagna, to grilled cheese sandwiches, and have even incorporated it into this Avocado Alfredo Sauce Recipe. […]
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Yum! Looks and I’m sure it tastes great!
Yum– I always make my boys pasta with goats cheese and avocado. This is the perfect vegan version for me! Pasta is for sure my guilty pleasure!
YUMMMY!! This recipe looks easy and delicious. I’m so hungry right now, it’s ridiculous. 😉
That looks delicious! And I have all the ingredients! I’m thinking it’s going to be alfredo for supper tonight. 😉
About the avocado, though–is the avocado flavor very strong? My husband doesn’t like avocados, but if the taste isn’t very strong in the sauce, it’d be a great way to sneak some healthy fat into his diet. 🙂
It doesn’t taste like avocado to me at all. I believe the other ingredients mask the taste quite well. That said, I <3 avocados so I might not notice the taste. Thanks for the comment, Nicole! 🙂