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Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta – 30 mins! Creamy Lemon Alfredo style sauce with tofu with fettuccine and pan roasted garlic asparagus and more lemon. Vegan Nutfree Recipe. Can be Glutenfree. 17 gm of protein Jump to Recipe
Asparagus is abundant and in season. Fresh, crisp and delicious and this lemon asparagus pasta celebrates it perfectly! The pasta comes together in 30 minutes and has this luscious delicious zesty cream sauce. The sauce uses tofu, non dairy milk and herbs for the sauce, See below for soyfree option. Tofu makes the sauce so fluffy creamy! Lemon in various forms at various stages of the sauce, lemon juice and zest in the blended sauce, zest and lemon slices while simmering, make this sauce incredibly tasty! Hubbs couldnt believe it was tofu! and 2 serves went down within minutes.
This Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta is all things Spring. Lemony, Creamy, satisfying and makes a great weeknight meal. The lemon pasta sauce is creamy and delicious. Adjust the flavor of the sauce while simmering to preference. Add a few tbsp of white wine for variation. Lets cook.
Ingredients and Substitutions for Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta
- Tofu makes for a quick and creamy sauce! no soaking the nuts needed. It also picks up the lemon flavor amazingly. To make this soyfree, You can use 1/2 cup cashews with 1.5 cups non dairy milk instead. Or use 1 cup of steamed cauliflower and 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds.
- Use any pasta of choice and use glutenfree if needed.
- The recipe can be easily made without oil. Saute in broth instead.
- Lemon at various stages in various forms, zest and juice in the blended sauce, zest and slices added during simmering is what makes this sauce mindblowingly delicious. No subs there!
Step by Step Photos
The key is to multitask for the various components for a quick meal. Start by bringing a pot of water to a boil for the pasta. Meanwhile, Chop the garlic, onion, mushrooms if using and asparagus. Assemble the sauce ingredients.
Blend the sauce and set aside.
Add pasta to the boiling water. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and Cook for half a minute, then add asparagus, salt, pepper. Toss for a few seconds, then cover and steam until bright green. Transfer to a bowl.
In the same pan add oil and then saute the garlic for a few seconds. Add onion and mushrooms and cook until translucent.
Check on the pasta while the onion is cooking. The pasta should be done by now, drain, rinse with cold water and set aside.
Once the onion is translucent. Add the blended sauce and simmer. Add the zest, slices, cooked asparagus and fettuccine and fold in. Toss well to coat all the pasta. Taste and adjust flavor. Switch off heat, but don’t take the pan off the stove. Cover and let sit for a few minutes for the flavors to meld.
Plate portions, garnish with vegan parm, basil, black pepper/pepper flakes and serve as is or with some garlic bread.
How to make Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta
- Start cooking the pasta. Meanwhile, Asparagus is roasted for a minute with golden garlic, then covered to cook with the steam.
- The sauce uses tofu and lemon, herbs and flavors. Tofu when blended makes for a silky creamy sauce!
- Garlic, onion and mushroom are sauteed, the sauce added and simmered to thicken.
- Then more lemon zest and lemon slices round up the flavor of this fabulous lemon cream sauce. Toss in the pasta and asparagus and serve!
More Pastas from the blog
- Sundried Tomato and Garlic Pasta with Soy curls.So beautiful!
- 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
- Chickpea Chorizo, Quinoa shells in tomato sauce. GF – So Meaty.
Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta
Ingredients
- 8 oz fettuccine or other pasta, , glutenfree pasta if needed
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic, , finely chopped
- 1 lb asparagus, , chopped into 2 inch pieces, remove tough bottom stem
- dash of salt and black pepper
Lemon Cream Sauce:
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 3-4 cloves of garlic, , finely chopped
- 1/3 cup chopped onion
- 2 oz sliced mushroom, optional
- 7 oz firm tofu, or silken tofu
- 1 cup non dairy milk, such as almond or soy
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- zest of half a lemon
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- 1/4 tsp ground mustard
- 1-2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp flour, , use starch or rice flour to make glutenfree
- 2 tsp italian seasoning, (I like 1 tsp basil, 1/2 tsp parsley, 1/3 tsp rosemary)
- zest of the other half of the lemon
- 3-4 thin lemon slices
- pepper flakes, ,black pepper, vegan parm for garnish
Instructions
- Cook the fettuccine according to instructions on the package, rinse in cold water and set aside. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for half a minute.
- Add asparagus, pinch of salt and black pepper and mix. Cover to cook/steam for 3 mins or until bright green. Transfer to a bowl.
- Add oil to the same skillet over medium heat, add garlic and cook for a few seconds. Add onion and mushrooms and cook for 2 mins
- Meanwhile, blend ingredients from tofu to flour until smooth. Add the blended sauce to the skillet, add herbs, and mix in. Bring to a simmer. Fold in the rest of the lemon zest, lemon slices. Taste and adjust salt and flavor with additional salt , garlic powder, herbs and some black pepper if needed.
- Add the the cooked pasta and 2/3 of the asparagus and mix in. Cover and take off heat and let the flavors meld for 2 mins.
- Garnish with pepper flakes, black pepper and fresh basil and optional vegan parm and the cooked asparagus. and serve.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
If making the cashew with milk do I still use silken tofu? I am halving and making it for 2 people, any ideas what I can use rest of tofu up on. I’m quite new to tofu silken Thanks
If using cashews you don’t need to use silken tofu. If you do use the tofu then you can use the remaining for a Mousse or other sauces
A wonderful fresh celebration of spring!
LOVE – love using tofu as the base instead of Cashews to keep the calories down!
This is a favorite at our house! So good
great Carole, thanks! I”m glad that everyone enjoyed it
I cannot wait to make this for a group! My son loves chicken alfredo, I think he would love this. I most likely will add a little more asparagus and mushrooms. This is so tasty! I went no oil and it feels like you are cheating, even when you’re not.
thank you, exactly – great taste doesn’t have to mean many calories and you can never have too many veggies
This was delicious! I didn’t have enough asparagus so I added broccoli and red bell peppers. I used penne pasta, the sauce perfectly nestled into the creases of the pasta. The tofu sauce is pure genius.
This was my first Vegan Richa recipe, I can’t wait to try the others!
amazing !! thank you. yes sauces and pastas are best when they compliment/match each other. Nice adaptation with the broccoli and peppers
Delicious!!! I just made this and I’m glad I doubled the recipe so we can enjoy it again tomorrow. I have been searching for a nut free alfredo type of sauce and i can’t believe i never considered tofu. Silken tofu made it soooooo smooth and creamy!
And i made these one the side. 🙂
https://fettabbau-trim.today/2015/11/easy-dinner-rolls-no-yeast.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
awesome
Great dish Richa! Made a double recipe and the leftovers tasted better every time I heated some up. Made a video of the process too… Thanks for all the great recipes! You crush it every time!
Cheers!
Thats a cool video! Glad you loved it!
Thanks for watching! Cheers!
Just made this using 6 servings (for 3 people). Delicious! Had to use spaghetti noodles, & no asparagus so the following is for the sauce only:
did not have lemon for zest so used 6 TB organic lemon juice & ended up adding more to taste; left out mushrooms (1 son does not like); used 14 oz block extra firm tofu, pressed (what I had & the only size I’ve ever seen it in); 8 cloves garlic; 1 small yellow onion; 2 cups soy milk; couldn’t be bothered figuring out how much .38 tsp was so I guesstimated on parsley, basil & rosemary as well as onion powder (used dehydrated onion, didn’t feel like grinding to a powder prior to putting in blender) & ground mustard. 1 tsp salt and 3 TB nutritional yeast & 6 tsp of tapioca flour/starch in hopes of thickening the sauce. Even heating did not thicken it enough (for me) but I didn’t want to add more flour and end up tasting the flour.
I did not like the way it tasted with the nutritional yeast but I had not finished adding things to taste. Once I was finished I couldn’t taste the nutritional yeast at all. Will omit next time.
Heated it up in my vitamix and I almost swooned when I tasted it! I asked my son if he liked it (he loves pasta and all carbs). He said it tasted “alright”. I think it was a “teenager thing” because as I was writing the review he came back for a LARGE second helping, even asking if it was ok for him to take so much. I had already eaten my small portion and he had determined there was enough left in the pot for his brother.
My pasta loving son is a junk food vegetarian. I’ll cook something he says he likes for dinner, and he has been known to eat an entire box of Cheez Its instead. So this is definitely being fixed for dinner at least twice a week at this house! Once with asparagus, since it’s “alright” and once with brussel sprouts which he actually likes.
awesome!
Just made this for dinner! Subbed in peas (it’s what I had), but I’m sure it was no less delicious!
yay!
This so was good! Thank you for your wonderful recipe! I omitted the nutritional yeast and added capers. Will definitely be a repeat in our house. I had no idea that tofu would blend into such a creamy sauce!
awesome!