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Vegan Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Sauce

October 20, 2020 by Annie Chesson 2 Comments

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Vegan Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Sauce - This sauce has zero dairy, but you’d never know it! Creamy, dreamy, super flavorful - it’s pasta’s best friend! TheGarlicDiaries.com

Look at that picture and tell me how crazy it is that there’s no dairy in this entire creamy, dreamy, smooth situation happening up there. Whaaaaat? BUT – it’s true, no dairy!

What crazy magic is happening that created this insanely creamy FOUR INGREDIENT sauce without any cream? Two main things:

  1. Roasted Cauliflower
  2. Raw cashews
Vegan Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Sauce - This sauce has zero dairy, but you’d never know it! Creamy, dreamy, super flavorful - it’s pasta’s best friend! TheGarlicDiaries.com

First things first – we roast the cauliflower (plus some garlic) for a delicious forty minutes in the oven until it’s nutty and a little bit caramelized and basically anything you could ever want in a vegetable (slow oven roast, you da real MVP, boo). Then we throw it the blender with some veggie broth and raw cashews, blend it until super smooth, and then bathe in it toss it with pasta, zoodles, spaghetti squash – you get the picture.

The pasta gives the sauce lots of flavor and substance, and the cashews are what give some heaviness that mimics a cream based sauce. Otherwise we basically just have blended cauliflower, which would probably also be delicious, but not really what we’re going for here!

Vegan Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Sauce - This sauce has zero dairy, but you’d never know it! Creamy, dreamy, super flavorful - it’s pasta’s best friend! TheGarlicDiaries.com

A few great things to point out here:

  1. This is a super easy vegan dish for anyone trying to increase their level of meatless meals or want to cook for a vegan/vegetarian friend!
  2. It’s SO much more nutrient dense than a cream sauce – there’s lots of healthy fats and veggie sneakage that happens here, which brings me to point three 👇🏻
  3. This is a home run for people with picky eaters. Both of my boys are moderately picky, and this was a hit with them! Which makes me very happy, because it’s nearly impossible to get my two year old to consume a vegetable unless it’s hidden in some way like it is here!
  4. The leftovers keep great! We ate on this all week and it was just as good reheated. We added a splash of almond milk each time we reheated because the sauce soaks into the noodles a bit.
  5. It’s a 4 ingredient situation, 5 when you count the pasta. I love that for my grocery bill 😍
Vegan Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Sauce - This sauce has zero dairy, but you’d never know it! Creamy, dreamy, super flavorful - it’s pasta’s best friend! TheGarlicDiaries.com

So good! Here’s the recipe for ya, friends 🥰.

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Vegan Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Sauce

Vegan Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Sauce - This sauce has zero dairy, but you’d never know it! Creamy, dreamy, super flavorful - it’s pasta’s best friend! TheGarlicDiaries.com

★★★★★

5 from 1 reviews

You would NEVER guess that this creamy, dreamy pasta sauce doesn’t actually have any cream. Absolute perfection tossed with noodles, zoodles, or spaghetti squash!

  • Author: Annie Chesson
  • Prep Time: 5 mins
  • Cook Time: 40 mins
  • Total Time: 45 minutes
  • Yield: 7 servings 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 head cauliflower, chopped into florets
  • 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
  • 2 cups veggie broth
  • 1/4 cup raw cashews
  • 1 pound pasta, I used fettuccine, cooked according to package instructions (can easily be subbed or zoodles or spaghetti squash!)

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees
  2. If you don’t have a high powered blender (like a Vitamix or Blendtec), boil your cashews for 10 minutes (or soak overnight) and then drain. If you have a high powered blender, don’t worry about this step.
  3. Meanwhile, on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, add your cauliflower + unpeeled garlic. Drizzle with olive oil until well coated, season with salt and pepper, and toss to combine
  4. Roast for 20 minutes, remove from the oven, toss, and roast for another 20 minutes
  5. Let the veggies cool a little bit so the garlic is easy to handle, and then squeeze the cloves out of their wrappers
  6. Add the cauliflower and garlic to a blender with your cashews and veggie broth and blend until very smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper and toss with your cooked pasta or pasta alternative!

Notes

Nutrition info is assuming you toss the veggies with 2 tablespoons of olive oil before roasting and that you serve the sauce with 1 pound of cooked pasta.

Nutrition

  • Calories: 335
  • Sugar: 2 g
  • Sodium: 602 mg
  • Fat: 10 g
  • Saturated Fat: 1 g
  • Trans Fat: 0 g
  • Carbohydrates: 20 g
  • Fiber: 6 g
  • Protein: 41 g
  • Cholesterol: 0 mg

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Vegan Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Sauce - This sauce has zero dairy, but you’d never know it! Creamy, dreamy, super flavorful - it’s pasta’s best friend! TheGarlicDiaries.com
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Filed Under: All Recipes, Dairy Free, Dinner, Fall Recipes, Gluten Free, Paleo, Vegetarian, Whole 30 Tagged With: cauliflower sauce, creamy vegan sauce, dairy free cream sauce, paleo cream sauce, roasted cauliflower, vegan cream sauce, whole 30 cream sauce, whole 30 pasta sauce

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Comments

  1. Jason Bosket says

    February 24, 2021 at 8:57 am

    I made this last evening and it was amazing flavor. I cut up onions, red / Green / Yellow peppers and stir fried them to add to this and it moved to the top of my favorite list! Can’t stress that roasting Cauliflower in Olive oil for 40 minutes turns it into a flavorful hearty vegetable and blending it with the Chicken stock works perfectly! Thank you for the great recipe!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
    • Annie Chesson says

      April 19, 2021 at 1:45 pm

      That’s awesome, Jason! I’m so glad you loved it. Thank you so much for the comment!

      Reply

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Annie Chesson
I am a passionate Christian, wife, cooking addict, and mom to the two sweetest boys in the world! Join me in my journey to create delicious, flavorful food. More About Me...

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