Vegan Alfredo Sauce with Mushrooms

Today, I am revisiting my creamy and velvety Vegan Alfredo Sauce with mushrooms and roasted garlic. It’s a classic recipe I first published in 2013 and many of you have made it over the years and come back to tell me about it.

After making it myself for the umpteenth time this past weekend, I thought it might be a good idea to pull this recipe out from the bowels of this blog and back to the front so those of you who are new to this blog can find it.

Alfredo is a creamy and rather voluptuous Italian white sauce for pasta made with lashings of butter and cream and cheese. To me, it’s always presented itself as an oxymoron. While its lush flavors scream out “eat me,” an Alfredo’s ingredient list pretty much makes it a no-no for nearly everyone except the most intrepid of eaters.

As a vegan, butter and cream and cheese are also out. So when I made a vegan version of this sauce all those years ago, I improvised with cashew cream, which makes a great substitute for cream in nearly any dish. It has a pleasing sweetness, like cream, and a similar mouth-feel, which is important because you want the texture of your Alfredo sauce to be silky and smooth.

The cheese is replaced here by nutritional yeast, and roasted garlic and summery herbs add an abundance of flavor.

Cashews are not a low-calorie food themselves, but they are certainly way lower in calories for all those dairy products they replace in this vegan Alfredo Sauce. Cashews — and the fat in them — are also actually good for you, unlike butter and cream and cheese. Altogether, there are just 228 calories in a serving of this vegan Alfredo Sauce, and 11 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber, which actually makes it quite good for you, unlike the traditional version.

I really love adding sage to this sauce. For one, this smoky, savory herb is plentiful in the summer months, and it begs to be used. I have a sage plant that I put into the ground in my backyard when we first moved into this house more than a decade ago and each year it survives the bitter winter to spring back to life and reward me with armfuls of sage. Not that you’d ever use armfuls of sage in any recipe. This is a strongly flavored herb, so a little goes a long way.

Nine ingredients for Vegan Alfredo Sauce:

• Raw cashews. Cashew pieces are fine and even better because they’re more economical than whole cashews. They will be blended up anyway.
• Crimini mushrooms
• Sage
• White wine (or vodka will do). It’s optional, but use it for more flavor.
• Nondairy milk (like unsweetened almond milk or soymilk. Don’t add coconut milk please — the flavor just doesn’t work with an Alfredo sauce.)
• Nutritional yeast
• Garlic
• Oregano (dry)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (or vegan butter)

How to make the creamiest alfredo:

• Start out by slicing the tops off two whole bulbs of garlic. Place the bulbs in a piece of aluminum foil, drizzle on some olive oil on the exposed tops, and then wrap the garlic in the foil. Roast in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes until the garlic is golden and soft and squeezes out easily from the papery skin.
• Soak 1 cup of cashews in 2 cups of any nondairy milk (except coconut — the strong flavor doesn’t really work here).  After about 15-30 minutes, blend it until very, very smooth with 2-4 tbsp of nutritional yeast (use more or less according to your preference), the roasted garlic, 1 tsp of dry oregano, salt and ground black pepper to taste.
• Heat 1 tbsp of vegan butter or extra virgin olive oil in a large skillet or saucepan. Add the mushrooms along with some salt and ground black pepper. Saute for a couple of minutes, then add about 1 tbsp of chopped sage and 1/4 cup of white wine or vodka. Continue to stir fry until all of the visible moisture has evaporated.
• Add the creamy cashew sauce to the skillet, stir well to mix, then cover and let it cook for 15 minutes on a low flame.
• Season with salt if needed and turn off the heat.
• Stir in your cooked pasta and enjoy.

What kind of pasta to serve with this sauce:

• Alfredo is traditionally served with fettuccine, which is a slim, ribbon-like pasta. I had pappardelle on hand this time, so I used that and it’s what you’ll see in the pictures. But while a flat ribbon shape like fettuccine is a nice vehicle for the creamy sauce, you don’t really need to stick with it. Many kinds of pasta are perfect with this sauce. A conchiglie or a farfalle pasta would be great here, as would orzo.
• To make a meal of this, all you need is a leafy salad on the side. If possible, serve with some vegan cashew parmesan.

Let’s dive into the recipe next.

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Looking for more tasty vegan pasta sauce recipes?

The Best Vegan White Pasta Sauce

Creamy Vegan Orzo Risotto with Brussels Sprouts

Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower Cashew Sauce

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Vegan Alfredo Sauce with Mushrooms Recipe