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Avocado Pasta with Smoky Pecans. This 20 Minute Creamy Avocado Basil Sauce is great over spaghetti or zoodles. Serve with smoky spicy pecans for amazing flavor. Vegan Soyfree Recipe. Can be nutfree.
The minute your avocado is ripe and you realize you don’t want an avocado toast, enter this Creamy and Easy Avocado Pasta sauce! I mean it is practically avocado toast. Flour stuff, avocado and toasty pecans :)/
Simple everyday ingredients, super quick and great when paired with some smoky roasted pecans (or use tempeh crumbles or vegan bacon bits etc). Add a side salad for a filling dinner.
This pasta is great for summer. Not too hot, not too heavy.
Easy, Creamy, Dreamy, Smoky! How do you use up your avocado?
More Pastas from the blog
- Garlic Pasta with Cajun Cauliflower – super popular
- Rose Sauce Farfalle – so Creamy!
- Lentil Bolognese with Spaghetti.– Hearty
- Cauliflower Parmesan Pasta Bake – sliced cauliflower, baked then dressed in vegan mozz, baked over pasta
- Pumpkin Sage Pasta with pumpkin cream sauce and crisp Sage . so good.
- Black pepper Mac and Cheese with Potato Carrot Cheese Sauce
- Chickpea Chorizo, Quinoa shells in tomato sauce. GF – So Meaty.
Most of these can be made gluten-free by using gluten-free pasta. Confession, no one in my house really likes avocado, they just tolerate it in certain ways. This includes me 🙂 . Have you noticed the dearth of avocado toasts on the blog or my instagram? It just doesn’t agree with my tummy that way. This pasta, in dressing overs tacos or guacamole is how we use it most frequently.
Avocado Pasta with Smoky Pecans
Ingredients
- 8 oz pasta such as spaghetti
- 1 ripe avocado
- 1 small clove of garlic or 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/4 cup packed basil, , plus additional for garnish
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp nutritional yeast
- black pepper or cayenne
- zest of 1/2 a lemon, divided
Smoky Pecans:
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
- 1 tsp oil
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp sweet paprika
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp oregano
Instructions
- Cook the pasta/spaghetti according to package instructions, Drain.
- Blend the avocado with the rest of the ingredients and zest of quarter of a lemon. add more water as needed. Taste and adjust flavor.
- Make the smoky pecans (or use smoky tempeh , see notes): You can Bake or cook on the stove top: Add oil to the pecans and mix well. Add the spices, mix to coat and bake at 325 degrees F for for 15-20 minutes.Skillet: Add pecans and oil to a skillet over medium heat. Cook for 3 to 4 mins,, stir occasionally to roast. Add the spices and salt and mix in. Cook for half a minute.
- Mix the avocado sauce and pasta. Garnish with the smoky pecans, chopped basil, remaining lemon zest and serve.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi,
Can I skip the nutritional yeast called for by the recipe?
yes. add a tsp of miso if you have that
I am wondering if this dish could be served room temperature. I’d like to prepare it in advance, say earlier in the day, and serve it room temperature to guests.
Many thanks
The avocado might start to brown if kept for too long. It did fine while i was photographing for about 1.5 hours. So maybe blend up the sauce and refrigerate it in a container that doesnt have too much air space. Then mix in with the pasta somewhat close to serving time. the pecans or tempeh can be made ahead easily.
I made this recipe recently and enjoyed it. I didn’t love the texture of the sauce, but it was a fine sauce to toss some Sriracha in.
I used walnuts instead of pecans and it worked really and was really the star of the show. The spice mixture was really good!
All in all, I didn’t love the recipe but it was super quick and I recommend giving it a try if you have the ingredients on hand.
I forgot to mention- the leftovers kept well over two nights for me.
Maybe thin out the sauce a bit more with the pasta water? Or use a simple pesto sauce instead. Good to know that it kept for 2 days.
I agree, this pasta is wonderful–very creamy and satisfying. I sprinkled it with toasted walnuts (time crunch) but next time will make the smokey pecans…..
Can I refrigerate this sauce? How long does it stay fresh in the fridge?
About 1 day in a container that fits the sauce with minimum air in the container. Avocado generally will brown, so the sauce is best made fresh. it takes 5 mins.
Tried this tonight as I had a fresh batch of basil growing. We really enjoyed it. I find regular pesto a little overpowering, however with your recipe, the addition of the avocado helped mellow the flavour and the lemon freshened it up. The smoky pecans were very yummy.
awesome!
Oh YES! I’ve been looking at this recipe for days while awaiting for the avocado to ripen. Definitely worth the wait. I didn’t make any changes to the recipe (well, I take that back as I used beet/zucchini noodles in place of pasta). Absolutely incredible recipe filled with satisfaction and flavor. Meat eating husband chose my dinner over his roast. Yah!
ha! fantastic!
So delicious!! I made this for lunch, and it is amazing!! I love the smoky pecans!
Awesome!
I’d still use overripe avocados for this recipe! Looks so perfect. Would this recipe work with bean-based pasta?
sure
This looks so good! I absolutely love avocado pasta, especially with zucchini noodles when the weather is warmer. The pecans look and sound incredible too…. I can imagine they are such a good balance of sweet and smokey! Thanks for sharing xx