Cashew Alfredo Sauce
1/2 cup raw cashews
1 1/2 cups boiling water (best to use starchy pasta-cooking water)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1-3 garlic cloves, to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
salt and pepper, to taste
1. Place raw cashews (not roasted!) in a food processor and pulse until nuts are very fine. Carefully add in the boiling water; process until smooth.
2. Add the lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and nutritional yeast; process again until smooth.
3. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper.
It's in the blending process that the sauce thickens, which is why using starchy water is your best bet, so it takes a while. If it isn't thickening enough for you, heat it in a saucepan over a low temperature for a few minutes, and that should do the trick.
Serve over cooked pasta. I like some steamed broccoli and red bell peppers added to mine.'
SO HOW'D IT GO?
Since I don't always have starchy water available--or hot water--I found it helps to reduce the water to 1 cup. I also have found that adding 4 sun-dried tomato halves really makes it rich!
This was SOOOOOOOO good! Totally converted me. I am already a huge fan of cashews but this is the bomb. I saved the leftovers and hope to use non something else. Thanks!!!
As the recipe is, this is a similar recipe to what we use as a cheesy sauce for lasagne and other things, so I don't think it's more of an alfredo sauce, but it's still good anyway :)
I made some adjustments as follow so it would taste as to what I consider an alfredo sauce would taste like:
1 cup raw cashews (realised I had used too much after blending :P)
1 1/2 tsp of onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp of nutmeg
1 tablespoon of margarine
1 tsp fresh chopped parsley
I left out the nooch and didn't use the oil or lemon juice.
This is a rather flexible recipe, and I think anybody can make their own adjustments. Fantastic! :)
i add a bit of fresh grated nutmeg to mine which puts it over the top of awesome. thanks for sharing! it's become a staple in our house!
I made this today using jarred cashew butter. My blender just won't blend them. So I used 1/2 of cashew butter and just enough boiling water as needed until it reached a good consistency. I also added curry powder. Very yummy!
This was/is awesome! it will be a regular as it is super quick easy and extremely well received. My soon to omni hubby is in lurv with this one, had seconds and can only say "wow" and "cashews?!?! really cashews?!?" we followed the ingredient pattern to the tee with great eye balling measure. we did angel hair pasta, and added a sauteed zucchini, pablano pepper, and quartered cherry tomatoes (added right at the end) from the garden, 1/2 walla walla onion and sauted baby bella mushrooms. uber nom. will make agian next week i am sure. thanks!
i have made a variant of this for some time. it is a no-fail sauce and really lends itself to variation. what i have noticed about the sauce thickening-it is of great importance that you blend it-a lot!! as it emulsifies, it thickens. others have heated it and this works as well-the starch in the cashews thickens with heat. it also thickens with standing. if you are using it over pasta it will absorb starch and thicken that way as well. great thanks to whoever created this. it is phenomenal!
I made this Sunday to go with my whole wheat pasta and string beans. I thought it was rich and had a nice creamy texture, but was a bit bland. I used a few more cashews than the recipe called for and added a little potato starch to thicken the mixture. To help with the blandness, I added more salt and pepper and also ground mustard powder and a dash of cardamom. Overall it made a very nice dinner and my omnivore husband liked it too!
I am just amazed that you can make a creamy sauce out of whole cashews and no flour needed. I am going to have to try a cashew whipped cream recipe I found next!
I made this last night, without reading any reviews/comments. Based on the recipe as listed, it does come out somewhat watery. I added a few more cashews and an extra tbsp of nutritional yeast, then spiced it up with paprika, white pepper, onion powder, extra garlic (both cloves and powder), mustard powder, and dried chives. Once i had it blended thoroughly, I put the sauce back in my sauce pan and 'eyeballed' around 1-2tbsp of arrowroot starch to thicken it up a bit. Otherwise a great base! I wanted to make it as listed since I typically do pasta dishes for dinner and leftovers for lunch at work. Easily made me about 3 meals (dinner, and two lunches)! Also mixed in some roasted veggies (brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower) with my pasta and alfredo. Definitely a good pairing!
I wouldn't call this alfredo, but it was creamy. I made mine with only 3/4 cup boiling water (not pasta water), so it was thick. Overall I found it a bit bland. If I were to make it again, I'd add in sundried or roma tomatoes, like others have suggested. I used this as a sauce for pizza.
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