This Vegan Alfredo Sauce is smooth and creamy and reminds me so much of the non vegan one I used to make but it is so much healthier. It’s all about texture and flavor and trust me when I tell you this one has an amazing silky texture and is bursting with flavor. Tom and I fight over licking the spatula when we make it! It’s a challenge to get a rich tasting sauce without using nuts, seeds or tofu but I did it with simple easy to assemble ingredients that everyone can find. I think this Alfredo Sauce is a game changer for a healthy lifestyle.
I love this Alfredo sauce served over zucchini noodles that I can make in 5 minutes in my own kitchen. It can also be enjoyed by the spoonful right out of the blender – it’s mostly vegetables so why not? Just be sure to save some for the rest of the family because it makes everything taste rich and flavorful!
I wanted you to see just how easy this is to make so we have a video for you with all the details. Last December we actually made a video of me making an Alfredo Sauce but after the taping I decided I wasn’t satisfied with the recipe so we tabled it. I was going to make the recipe again and tweak it to perfection but we got busy with life and new recipes and it remained on the back burner. That is until I came across it in my recipe notebook recently and I had to get back in the kitchen and perfect the recipe. I made it, tweaked it, we loved it and here it is!
The secret ingredient is the ever humble cauliflower! The recipe calls for 1 pound and I do weigh it out. If you don’t have a food scale I highly recommend getting one – you can get one on Amazon for under $10. You can see from the photo about what a pound looks like in a 4 cup measuring cup. I use the Instant Pot pressure cooker to cook the cauliflower and garilc. If you don’t have a pressure cooker you can cook it on your stove top until tender. You might need to add more water since you will encounter evaporation when cooking it on the the stove top.
The list of ingredients is pretty simple and most plant based kitchens are going to have everything on hand to make this recipe. The Sari brand of nutrional yeast is my favorite. It is unfortified and it has a delicious flavor. Not all brands of nutritional yeast taste the same. Use one that you like the flavor of.
Have fun with this Alfredo Sauce and try it over zucchini noodles, potatoes, green beans, asparagus or air fried portabella mushrooms.
Vegan Alfredo Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 pound cauliflower florets
- 1/2 cup hot water
- 4 cloves garlic
- 3/4 cup unsweetened plant milk
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon Table Tasty salt substitute or your favorite salt substitute
- 2 tablespoons rolled oats
- freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes – optional if you don’t like the kick red pepper flakes give a recipe feel free to reduce or omit it.
Instructions
- Place the hot water in the stainless steel liner of a 6 quart electric pressure cooker along with the garlic cloves and cauliflower. Put the lid on and close the valve, set the timer for 1 minute and use quick release. When the pressure comes down remove the lid and carefully transfer the water, cauliflower and garlic to a high powered blender container, add the rest of the ingredients except for the red pepper flakes. Process until smooth and creamy about 1 minute. Stir in the red pepper flakes.
- Serve the Alfredo Sauce over zucchini noodles or your favorite type of noodle. To heat up the zucchini noodles I put them in a microwave safe dish covered and microwave for 2 minutes. You can also heat them up gently in a nonstick skillet until warm. If you cook zucchini noodles too long they will get watery. Garnish with fresh basil if desired.
Notes
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Thank you so much ! I will try it next week and let you know how we liked it….
Wonderful!
Made it tonight and it was delicious! I have been waiting for this recipe and I had all the ingredients. I did use riced cauliflower because that is what I had. I appreciated the Weight info so I could use the proper amount of riced cauliflower.
Thank you! I am so glad you liked it!
Hi Tami,
Are there substitutions for rolled oats and nutritional yeast? And can I use hemp milk for plant milk? Thank you for all the recipes and u-tube videos I watch all of them and appreciate your time and effort.
Thanks,
Hi Judy
I don’t know of any substitute for Nutrtional Yeast – I guess you could try leaving it out – it does impart a cheezy flavor – so the end result won’t be the same but it could still be tasty! You might be able to use Quinoa Flakes instead of the oats or maybe a tablespoon of cooked white potato – I tried a version using white potato and it was too thick and pasty but perhaps a small amount would work. The oats just help add a creaminess and a little thickner to the end product. You could try it without and see how it is – I think it would still be fine. The ingredients list is what I have found to be the best combination after trying many different variations so the end result is going to be different when you start subbing ingredients so just keep that in mind when you make it with changes. As I said in the recipe you can use your favorite plant milk – I used unsweetened almond milk. I haven’t tasted hemp milk so I don’t kow if it will impart any flavor or not. If it’s neautral in its flavor it should be fine. Have fun experimenting! Tami
This looks AMAZING!! Will definitely try. Thank you so much for all your recipes, they make it easy to stay on plan.
Thank you! Happy Cooking!
Thank you for following us!
Tami, thanks for this recipe – it sounds great. Do you think you could use frozen cauliflower if you decreased the cooking time and perhaps increased the oats?
Hi Pat,
I don’t know because I didn’t try it with frozen cauliflower. It would have more water because of being frozen so perhaps reduce the amount of water when cooking the cauliflower. Start with a smaller amount of plant milk. Too much oats makes it too thick and more like gravy than a silky sauce. Play around with it and see how it turns out – I think it will still be delicious. Please come back and leave a comment about what you did and how it turned out. It helps others who also have the same questions!
Happy Cooking,
Tami
I didn’t try it with frozen cauliflower and it would have more water when cooked so perhaps decrease the amount of water used when cooking the cauliflower and perhaps just heat it up on the stove top or the microwave. I think you can make it work but I didn’t try it myself. But it’s worth a try!
This is so goooddddd!!!
Thank you so much! We love it too!
We can’t wait to try this tonight! Loved the YouTube video. My husband, newly retired and trying cooking, feels like he’s capable of doing this one. So we’ll see.
I had some trouble printing out the recipe. It generated 8 pages, the whole blog post, instead of just the recipe. Any suggestions on that? Thanks for all you do. It is very helpful.
Hi Debbie,
Thank you so much for your nice comments – we really appreicate it. I love that your husband is cooking for you!
I am sorry about the print function. If you hover the curser over the text you don’t want to print it allows you to delete all but the recipe. It isn’t the best print program and we are looking into buying a different one to use. We will have to enter all of the recipes individually into the new program so it wont’ be an instant fix but something we will be working on. You can also copy and paste just the recipe into a word document and print it that way too.
Thank you so much for the feedback we really appreciate your comments.
Happy healthy cooking,
Tami
I love your Alfredo Sauce. It’s delicious! Thank you so much.
Thank you Gerri!
This is delicious and my favorite Alfredo Sauce! Thanks for sharing this recipe.
Oh Tami, this sauce is absolutely delicious!!! Can’t wait to try it on other foods. I made smashed potatoes this time which was great. I only made half to see what i thought but wish i had made a full recipe!
Hi Betty,
I am so glad you like the recipe – we love it too!
Happy Cooking,
Tami
I made this again as we loved it and decided to double batch it! Do you think it will freeze ok?
Hi Shawna,
I am so glad you like the recipe so much. I haven’t tried freezing it myself so I don’t know. I would try freezing a small amount
and see how it does. Let me know if you try freezing it!
Happy Cooking,
Tami
This looks so good. However, I am hesitant to try any recipe that involves a “high powered blender” as I don’t have a Vitamix. Will this do okay in a regular blender? My husband is not a fan of cauliflower so I don’t want chunks. My daughter has a Vitamix so I could perhaps borrow it. Thanks.
Hi Linda,
I only have the high powered blender so I can’t answer for sure but I do think you need one to make it very smooth.
Best regards,
Tami
Hi Tami and Tom.
Thanks so much for this delicious recipe. I was getting bored with tomato based food. This is just what I was missing for my taste buds. Delish! even tho I made so many mistakes, it still came out great..
I love watching your YouTube channel and your blog and your Amazon page.. Thanks for everything.
Hi Kathy,
I am so glad you liked it!
Happy Cooking,
Tami