Vegan Cream Sauce

Since the early ‘80s, Tofutti has advertised itself as a cream cheese substitute.

It has been lying.

It severely lacks that infamous sour-sweetness that “real” cream cheese has. BUT Tofutti does deliver a mellow creaminess that should be recognized, applauded and utilized in dishes that would have most vegans rushing to soak cashews (another cream substitute; don’t worry about it. Cashews are expensive AF).

This rich pasta sauce depends on Tofutti for its undervalued plainness and turns it into a hero for cheap vegans everywhere.

Vegan Cream Sauce

• 1 box gluten-free pasta

• 2 tbsp. vegan butter

• 3 tsp. crushed garlic

• 1/2 cup dry white wine (like a sauvignon blanc - but totally optional)

• 4 tbsp. Tofutti

• 1.5 cups unsweetened almond milk

• *2 tbsp. white miso

• 1 tbsp. nutritional yeast

• 1.5 tsp. pepper

• 2+ tsp. lemon juice (for each bowl of pasta, drizzled over pasta before eating)

• *8 oz. vegetable of your choice

Process

1. *Cook the pasta 1-2 minutes less than the box directions call for. Do not rinse the pasta when draining it!

2. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. When the butter has melted and sizzles, add the garlic.

3. *Stir and cook until the garlic is golden-brown. Add the white wine and cook until the wine has reduced by half.

4. *In a separate bowl, whisk the Tofutti, almond milk, miso, nutritional yeast and pepper together.

5. Pour the mixture into the pan and cook/stir until thick and bubbly - 5ish minutes over medium heat.

6. *Turn the heat to low, add your vegetable of choice to the pan and coat with the sauce. Add the pasta to the pan and toss to coat. Cook it all together for another 2-3 minutes.

7. *When you’re ready to serve the pasta, drizzle 2+ tsp. of lemon juice over each bowl and stir to distribute into the pasta. Garnish with more pepper.

Notes

• Cooking pasta 1-2 minutes less than directions - Because you’re going to let the pasta cook for a few minutes in the sauce at the end, you don’t want to fully cook the pasta beforehand. Otherwise, the noodles will overcook.

• Vegetable of your choice - I have yet to find a vegetable that doesn’t work with this recipe. As you can see above, I’ve used mushrooms, but I’ve also used asparagus, peas, brussels sprouts, even broccoli. For the most part, just cut your vegetables to bite-size and lightly fry them in the pan with some olive oil and garlic before starting the sauce. BUUUT…

  1. Mushrooms have a particular way they like to be cooked (found out after way too long - Thanks, America’s Test Kitchen!), so if you’re going to use mushrooms:

     1. Brown them in the frying pan with 1 tbsp. olive oil over a medium heat before you start the whole process.

     2. Cook and stir until all the moisture has cooked off and they’re browning.

     3. Then, add 1/2 tsp. white wine vinegar and stir in. Cook for another 1-2 minutes, until the vinegar has cooked off, and remove them from the heat/pan. Now, you can start the sauce.

• Not rinsing pasta - Hopefully you’ve seen my PSA on not rinsing pasta in previous posts. But just in case you hadn’t - don’t do it. Rinsing pasta rinses off the awesome starchiness from the noodles that helps sauces stick.

  • Adding wine - The dry white wine adds a nice, extra sum-n’ sum-n’ to the sauce - a bit of acidity that adds clarity to the garlic and cream. It does not have to be a bougie bottle of wine. We’re talking the $5 clearance or bottom-shelf sauvignon blanc. You’re not actually drinking it; you just want the background flavors from it. You can always suffer through drinking shitty wine since you already have it, but you can spare yourself the abuse and keep it in your fridge for future use - you cook off all the alcohol anyway, so it won’t really matter if it goes stale or gets a little more acidic.

• Adding miso - As stated above, creamy sauces need salt and acidity. Miso is as salty as you can get and cuts into the creaminess very well. Otherwise, it wouldn’t taste like much and you’d be as disappointed with Tofutti as ever.

• Whisking the Tofutti - I say “whisk” because a whisk will let you more easily mash the Tofutti and miso with the other ingredients. Once the tofutti and miso start to break down, it will be easier to whisk. And if there are any extra bits that you can’t get to mix in, the heat in the pan will break those down for you.

• Lemon juice - Again with the acidity! Adding lemon juice at the end hits that perfect high note for the creamy sauce. It doesn’t overpower and make the sauce taste lemony (I hate that).

Tofutti can finally be recognized for its talent of imitating plain cream, instead of trying to live up to our expectations of cream cheese. Try Tofutti whenever you need cream, instead of spending (way too much) money on raw cashews to soak overnight.