Easy creamy mushroom pasta

Here’s a lovely creamy mushroom pasta dish for dinner - it’s a recipe from our online Vegan Cooking Course, which is a 4-week course to help you learn how to cook delicious plant based meals without recipes using a framework approach. It’s based on 14 years experience as plant-based chefs.

Takes 15 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 red onions

2 cloves garlic

250g mushrooms ideally a mixture including oyster, shiitake, chestnut, button

3 tbsp tamari/ soy sauce

100ml veg stock or water

250g wholemeal penne pasta

Creamy sauce:

100g toasted cashew nuts 

450ml soy milk or non dairy milk of choice

juice of half lemon

1 tsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

To serve:

oregano or herb of choice to serve

1 chilli to serve

*To toast raw cashew nuts just heat a non stick pan on medium heat, add the cashew nuts and keep them moving till they start to brown. This should take between 5-8 mins, be careful not to burn the nuts.

Instructions

• Peel and finely chop the onions and garlic, chop the mushrooms into small pieces. Fill and boil the kettle. Cook the pasta as per the instructions on the back of the pack.
• Put a non stick frying pan on high heat and allow the pan to get super hot. Once super hot add the onions and garlic and fry until they start to brown.
• Once they start to brown and stick a little add some veg stock (approx 1 tsp) or water to clean the pan and incorporate the browned flavour to the dish. This should take about 3-5 mins.
• Add the mushrooms and fry for 2-3 mins again adding a little water or veg stock if they start to stick. You want to ensure you are frying rather than boiling (frying there is little or no liquid or water in the pan vs boiling the veg is submerged under water.)
• Add 3 tbsp of tamari/ soy sauce and fry for a further 2 mins. Turn off the heat
• Time to make the sauce, in a blender add the cashew nuts, soy milk or milk of choice, lemon, salt and garlic powder and blend till super smooth.
• Put the frying pan back on high heat, add the sauce in on top of mushrooms and heat up and allow the sauce to reduce & thicken for 2-3 mins. Once the pasta is cooked use a slotted spoon to add pasta straight into the sauce. If the sauce gets too thick add a little pasta water to reach the desired thickness of sauce. Taste and season to your liking.
• Chop the chilli (removing seeds if you want it less hot) and pluck the oregano off the stalk and serve to add flavour and garnish. Enjoy!