For a date night dinner is there any reasons to look further than pasta? Italian food is super romantic, pairs well with wine, is filling, generally not too much work. The best ROI if you will.
Compared to when I first went dairy-free, there are so many more widely available alternative ingredients. It’s insane!
One of my favorite alternatives—nutritional yeast! If you don’t know about or use nutritional yeast, you are missing out. It’s a magical ingredient that can replace cheese is basically every recipe. It can also be used as a salt substitute if you’re watching your sodium levels.
Essentially it’s inactive yeast made from sugar cane and beet molasses, but without the leavening ability of active yeast. It can be found in the health food/GF sections of most grocery stores. Plus it’s naturally gluten-free and dairy-free.
Alfredo pasta is something that reminds me of my childhood. All those weekends spent at Fazoli’s between games at soccer tournaments or birthday dinners spent at Macaroni Grill, you best believe I was ordering the fettuccine alfredo!
Then when I went dairy-free, I found myself limited to red sauce pastas, especially as most vegetarian options at restaurants were either salads or pastas. The trouble with being dairy-free and vegetarian was that the vegetarian menu items being offered were 99.5% a cheese-covered pasta…alfredo pasta, lasagna, mac and cheese, etc. So salad it was for a good while.
Then BEHOLD a surge of vegetarian, vegan, and health conscious restaurants began sprouting up, and items utilizing nutritional yeast were available. I could finally enjoy old favorites again!
It’s been a blessing and a curse knowing how to make my own alfredo-style sauce. One the one hand it’s freakin’ delicious while on the other I’m now eating pasta multiple times a week. But then again what’s life without pasta, am I right?
GLUTEN-FREE, VEGAN ALFREDO SAUCE
Ingredients
- 1 cup cashews
- 1/3 water
- 1/3 cup cashew milk or alternative milk of choice, additional to desire consistency
- 1 1/2 tbsp garlic mince
- 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt, to taste
Directions
- Blend all ingredients until a smooth consistency is reached.
Pour over favorite cooked pasta. Store remaining in airtight container in the fridge.
