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Sunday, March 22, 2015

Vegan Garlic Cream Sauce

I love pasta sauces.  They're my favourite thing to both eat and make.  Being a discriminate eater, and one who appreciates flavour of foods as much (if not more) than the healthiness of food, I want to put it out there that of course a full-fat cream sauce is just divine and wholly unparalleled in terms of both flavour and texture.

An authentic French cream sauce is like drinking a rich velvet or silk, to invoke a colourful metaphor.

But, sometimes we just don't feel like putting all of that animal fat into our bodies.

So, it is of ongoing importance to me, to experiment and keep experimenting with vegan substitutions.

And, true to form, each of my experimentations and iterations does prove to be better than the last.

So, here's my latest vegan cream sauce, with garlic.

First, we sweat a generous amount of white onion and (copious amounts of) fresh garlic in some vegetable oil.  I've found canola works well... coconut not so much (for this kind of thing).


Sweat until softened and translucent, NOT until browned.


When done, take it out and purée this finely using a strong mixer or immersion blender, adding some almond milk (unsweetened, unflavoured) to help with the blending.


When that is nice and consistent, pour that into a medium-sized saucepan.


Mmmmm...

Next, mix (either whisking or blending) together some corn starch and some almond milk.


When that is also mixed finely, whisk that into the saucepan.



Adding more almond milk if needed, but do so slowly and allow for a few minutes to pass between additions.


So smoot!

Add some fresh herbs of your choice.  Personally, I'm a fan of Italian Parsley for cream sauces, but have also been known to do fresh Thyme or Basil or even Tarragon.




After a few minutes, and after it has thickened somewhat, it's ready for your noodles.

Today I chose a nice, high quality rigatoni noodle; all the better to help soak up the sauce.


Now, normally I do not advocate mixing the noodles and the sauce together in one pan, but instead prefer to keep the two separate until right before eating.

However, this was a small batch, just for myself, and I wanted to mix it up real well in the saucepan, so I put them together just this once.



YUM!




Not as delicious as an authentic white sauce, but still delicious and garlic-y, while being just so much ridiculously healthier.