Purple Cauliflower Alfredo

I’m not going to lie, half the fun of this sauce is making a purple pasta dish! Now, I did punch up the color slightly for the photo and added some beetroot powder as mentioned below, but in person it still came out to a lovely shade of purple, almost more towards lavender. I think it will depend on how vibrant the cauliflower is.

Just warning you upfront: This recipe will yield extra sauce that you can store and re-use for more freshly-cooked pasta the next few days. You could also eat the sauce as a soup or use it over warm potatoes. If you want to use all of the sauce at once, cut the recipe in half or make double the amount of pasta. I do the recipe this way because then I can use the entire cauliflower head at once, plus it’s hard to mix up less than this amount in my blender.

Ingredients:

• 1 head purple cauliflower (about 1 lb. chopped)*
• 1 1/2 cups of vegetable broth**
• 1/2 cup raw cashews
• 2 heaping tbsp. nutritional yeast
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 1/8 tsp. beetroot powder***
• 1 8 oz. box of pasta (I use Banza chickpea pasta)

Method:

1. Heat vegetable broth in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add cauliflower and cashews. Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes on medium-low heat, or until the cauliflower is tender. Add more vegetable broth if needed.
2. Once cauliflower is tender, move the contents to a blender and allow to cool.
3. Meanwhile, bring water to a boil and cook pasta according to directions. Drain and set aside, reserving about 1 cup of pasta water for later to use for thinning the pasta sauce.
4. Puree the cauliflower and cashew mix in the blender. Add garlic, lemon, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. The sauce will likely be a shade of lavender, depending on the cauliflower you use. To punch up the color, I like to add the beetroot powder, or you could even add a small piece of an actual cooked beetroot.
5. To finish, simply toss your pasta with the pureed sauce. I used about half of the sauce for my one 8 oz. box of pasta and put the rest of the sauce in the fridge to use in the next couple of days (which made preparing dinner so fast!).
6. I like to top my pasta with freshly-ground black pepper and some greens. In the photo I added some arugula.
7. Enjoy!

*You can substitute regular white cauliflower or any other yellow or green variety.

**You could also use unsweetened plant-based milk, which might lead to a more purple pasta, but veggie broth provides better flavor.

*** Beetroot powder is optional for added color, or if you have purple corn powder or purple sweet potato powder, those would be even better for enhancing the color.