For years I have been reading about how to make a cream sauce using cashews, but I just have never gotten around to trying it, mainly because I can make it using a plant-based milk with a little flour for thickening. Because my vegan friend was visiting me for dinner, I thought I would try a new recipe using cashews. True to my nature, I almost never follow a recipe exactly, so I adapted a recipe from Nadia the Good Food Cook. The results were impressive. I was able to achieve a very thick cream without needed flour or another thickener. And it was delicious (partly due to how much garlic I added). I loved it so much I had foodie day dreams about eating it right up to lunchtime today. Here is my not-so-precise recipe.
Tools
Food processor
Pot
Strainer
Knife
Cutting Board
Ingredients
Cream sauce:
8.5 oz can of cashews, soaked for at least 6 hours and drained (or boil 10-15 minutes)
4-10 cloves of garlic (10 cloves is really strong, so add however many to your preference)
1/2 Onion diced
1 tb Olive Oil
1/4 cup Soy Sauce or Teriyaki Sauce (I used Teriyaki and it didn't have a sweet taste)
1/4 cup Almond Milk (or any other plant-based milk)
2 tb lemon juice
3/4 water
1/4 cup of fresh basil
1/2 of fresh, minced spinach (optional)
Pasta & Mushrooms:
8-oz whole wheat pasta
Four cups of water with 1 tb Salt
1 tb of salt
1.5 pounds white button mushrooms (thinly sliced)
1/4 cup Soy Sauce or Teriyaki Sauce
Additional salt + pepper to taste
Additional salt + pepper to taste
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| Soaked cashews. |
Directions
Cream sauce:
1. Saute 1/4 onion with 2-4 cloves of thinly sliced garlic in the olive oil just until softened.
2. Put mixture into food processor along with drained cashews. Add remaining garlic, almond milk, lemon juice, water, basil, and spinach and blend until you have a thick, pourable sauce. Add more almond milk if necessary.
1. Put four cups of water into pot and bring to a boil.
2. Add salt and pasta and cook to desired firmness.
3. Save 1/2 water from the pot and drain the rest of the water from the pasta using the strainer.
Mushrooms:
1. Saute mushrooms in olive oil until they shrink and turn brown.
2. Add teriyaki sauce. Add cream sauce to mushrooms. Add 1/2 cup of water from pasta and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
3. Pour sauce over cooked pasta.
4. Enjoy!
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Marquita Bell is soaper-in-chief and the owner of The Body Buffet where foodie meets beauty. Based out of Philadelphia, The Body Buffet aims to cultivate beauty inside and out from foodie adventures, self-care tips, and via handmade artisan soap, shampoo bars, facial bars, laundry soap and more. They use local ingredients when possible and have aimed to make conditioning skin-loving, hair-loving, clothes-loving soap since 2009.
