Fettuccini Alfredo with spinach, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes

I’ve been wanting to make this vegan Alfredo recipe for the past couple of weeks ever since I saw it on the Cooking Channel. This was featured on a special called The Veg Edge which was all about vegan cooking. I made some modifications to the original Alfredo recipe to suit my taste and am going to recommend further modification now that I’ve tried it.

Fettuccini Alfredo

1 pound fettuccine noodles

2 Tbl olive oil

salt and pepper

6 ounces mushrooms

1 bunch spinach, chopped

1 jar sun-dried tomatoes in oil, diced

Alfredo sauce (recipe follows)

Alfredo Sauce

1 cup raw almonds

4 cups water, plus 2 cups water

1 large yellow onion, chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

3 cloves garlic, minced

Cook the fettuccini according to the package.

Sauté the mushrooms in olive oil and set aside. Season with salt and pepper.

Sauté the onion and garlic in olive oil and set aside.

Toss the fettuccini with the mushrooms, spinach (the warm pasta will wilt the spinach so there is no need to cook it ahead of time), and sun-dried tomatoes, and Alfredo sauce, serve hot.

For the Alfredo Sauce

Boil 4 cups of water, add the almonds and boil 5 minutes. Drain the almonds. Using your fingers, peel the almonds and discard the skins.

Blend the skinless almonds in a blender or food processor with 2 cups of water until smooth. Strain through a colander lined with cheesecloth or paper towels. Reserve the liquid and discard the solids. Return the almond milk to the blender and process with the onion garlic mixture . Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I mentioned earlier that I modified the original recipe a bit. One of the modifications I made was to use spinach instead of kale. I like them both but the kale at the store didn’t look quite as perky as I would have liked and the spinach was on sale for $.88. The next time I make this I will also be using Almond milk from a carton rather than going through the trouble to make this sauce from scratch. It was a fun process but I don’t think the flavor would be affected and it is also going to save you a lot of time.

I had never skinned an almond before and it was rather gratifying when their little skins just popped right off.

Here is my almond milk straining. I did not have cheesecloth and strained it through two paper towels which worked just fine.

Chopped spinach and sun-dried tomatoes. These tomatoes are like candy, I could have eaten the entire jar and skipped the pasta completely.

The final verdict on this vegan Alfredo was that though it did not taste like a traditional cheese Alfredo it was quite delicious. The sauce stuck to the noodles and gave them a ton of flavor. Next time I am using almond milk from the carton to save time and also plan to double the amount of spinach and mushrooms I used just because I love them so much.