Creamy Vegan Mushroom Pasta

Creamy Vegan Mushroom Pasta

This easy-to-make creamy vegan mushroom pasta is rich and indulgent yet full of goodness.

Each mouthful will surprise you with its rich flavor from the garlicky roasted mushrooms and the white cream’s smoothness.

All ready in under 30 minutes!

And the sauce that makes all of this possible is cashew cream.

If you have been on a vegan diet for a long time, you will probably be familiar with it and don’t need an introduction. But for the novice out there, cashew cream will quickly become your best friend.

What goes in this vegan mushroom pasta

Here is what you need:

• Mushrooms – No kidding! 
• Garlic
• Onion
• Parsley and/or thyme – fresh for more flavor, but frozen work too
• Olive oil
• Pasta
• Cashew nuts
• Lemon juice
• Black pepper and salt

How to make vegan mushroom pasta

Here is how to make it:

1. Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil. 
2. Add the mushrooms, fresh parsley, and thyme, season, and let them brown for 10 minutes. In the meantime, blend the cashew (more on that below).
3. Add the cashew cream to the mushrooms, toss with the pasta and serve!

So easy!

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How to make cashew cream

Cashew cream is the real deal and what makes this vegan mushroom pasta so deliciously creamy. 

You just need 4 simple ingredients:

• Soaked cashews
• Water
• Salt
• Lemon juice

The trick to making the most amazingly smooth cashew cream is to soak your cashews in water. You can do this for 12 hours in cold water (who has got time for that?) or simply add them to boiling water for 10-15 minutes (I’ll go for this one!).

I never tried to soak my cashew nuts for more than 15 minutes for 2 main reasons:

• As much as I love meal prepping, I never remember to make this kind of thing ahead. 
• This vegan cream comes out so good and smooth even with the cheap blender I use that I don’t really see a valid reason to soak cashews for longer.

All you have to do is place the cashews in a bowl and cover them with boiling water (it needs to be super hot!). 

Soak them for at least 10-15 minutes. Drain and rinse thoroughly. 

Place the cashews in a food processor or blender with water, salt, and lemon juice until velvety smooth. The lemon juice just adds a bit of acidity. This gives the cream the perfect tanginess to replace dairy cream in this recipe (or any recipe).

I find that the perfect ratio for this creamy pasta recipe is roughly 1 to 1. So if you are using 1 cup of cashews, you’ll need 1 cup of water. This makes a slightly less thick cream, but that’s the consistency we need to soak our pasta in and allow it to absorb all the creaminess.  

Extra tips

What kind of mushrooms can you use?

You will need plenty of mushrooms to infuse the cream and pasta with flavor.

Pretty much any type of mushrooms works. In this version, I used a mix of shitake mushrooms and brown mushrooms (AKA gourmet, cremini/crimini, or chestnut mushrooms). But you can also use medium-size portobello mushrooms.

Tip for extra awesomeness: If you really want to go the extra mile and have an extra 10 minutes to spare, you can also add a handful of dried porcini mushrooms.

The deeper flavor will be unbelievable! 

All you have to do is to soak the dried porcini mushrooms in a glass with hot water for at least 15 minutes before adding them to the pan (make sure they are fully covered). This will rehydrate them and create a rich mushroomy broth that you can add to the sauce.

You can do this ahead of time while you prepare everything else.

Toppings and additions

This pasta is perfect as it is, but if you want a bit of extra flavor and crunchiness, you can top it with some grated walnuts (like I did here), some parmesan if you are not vegan, or some nutritional yeast flakes.

You can also add a couple of handful of spinach into the sauce just before tossing the pasta for a full rounded meal (eat your greens, remember?).

Can you meal prep this pasta?

I wouldn’t recommend cooking this pasta ahead of time, or it’ll get too soft and soggy.

But you can prep the sauce ahead of time and keep it in the fridge for 2-3 days. Once you are ready to eat it, just warm it up in a pan on low-medium heat. Add some extra water a bit at a time to loosen it up a bit, and cook your pasta at the last minute for the perfect weeknight dinner.

More pasta recipes you absolutely need to try:

• Creamy Butternut Squash Pasta
• Tuscan Kale Pesto Pasta
• No-Cook Creamy Tomato Pasta
• Creamy Tomato Pasta With Herbs