Vegan Alfredo Sauce (dairy free!)

Silky smooth Vegan Alfredo Sauce is a tasty comfort food pasta dish with all the creaminess of the American classic but entirely dairy-free!

Serve this with a lovely Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Romesco Sauce!

I love a creamy pasta sauce! This dairy free sauce is made from cashews to create a beautiful sauce that will coat your pasta like a dream. To make it even better, it’s incredibly quick and easy to make, perfect for a weeknight dinner!

Vegan Alfredo Sauce

It’s a challenge to recreate a recipe that only uses a small number of ingredients because there are only so many changes that can be made. But turning classic Alfredo sauce vegan is surprisingly easy. The magic ingredient is the cashews, which add substance to the sauce as well as a pleasant nuttiness.

In some ways this cashew Alfredo sauce is just like the original. The consistency is spot on, with all the velvety creaminess you could hope for. It also coats the pasta like a dream!

The taste is not quite a mirror of the original sauce, and there is no way to completely replace dairy in a simple recipe like this. Cashews bring a different set of flavours to the table that will never totally match butter, cream and parmesan cheese.

That doesn’t mean this can’t be a tasty sauce with all the luxurious creaminess you could possibly want! You may get results you are truly happy with by playing around with the proportions in the recipe. I’ve made this according to the flavours my family prefer, but have tested it with different amounts of garlic and lemon to get it just right. A bit of experimentation is recommended!

One way to alter the flavour is to add a vegan hard cheese. My family is not fond of vegan hard cheese so I’ve left it out, but cheese would add salty umami flavour.

How to Make Vegan Alfredo Sauce

Alfredo sauce uses a short list of ingredients and is quite simple. By far the longest part is soaking the raw cashews. Pour boiling water over the cashews and let them soak for 30 minutes to 1 hour. You may need to let them soak longer if your blender is not high powered.

Once the cashews are done soaking, add them to a blender with nutritional yeast, a clove of garlic, oat milk and a pinch of salt. Blend them until velvety and smooth.

Transfer the sauce to a pan or saucepan and cook for a couple of minutes over low heat. The aim is to warm everything up and give the garlic a chance to cook.

That’s it! Toss the sauce with cooked pasta of your choice (I used tagliatelle) and enjoy!

Recipe Tips

• Because the sauce is made of nuts a skin will form very quickly if the sauce is left unattended. If you do need leave it for a few minutes, covering the pan with a lid will keep the sauce from drying out.
• I’ve used oat milk for this recipe as it has a neutral taste, but rice milk can also be used. Avoid using milk that has been sweetened.
• If you have made a batch and will be reheating the sauce, add a splash of milk to loosen it.
• The cashews used in this recipe need to be raw, not roasted, and they will need to be soaked beforehand. A high powered blender such as Kitchen Aid, Vitamix or Blendtech will be able to manage cashews that have been soaked for a short time such as a half hour. If your blender does not have as much power they may need to be soaked overnight.