Thursday, December 8, 2011

Spaghetti Squash Alfredo - it's VEGAN!

I made this up the other night, with the help of a friendly suggestion from my friend Cat.  I was telling her I didn't know what I was going to make for a potluck on Tuesday night, but mentioned making some kind of Alfredo and dumping it over cooked spaghetti squash.  

She says: "You know, there's a recipe out there saying you can make alfredo sauce with chickpeas."
Me: "WHA??  I totally have chickpeas!"

And the rest is history. ;) 
I found a full recipe on how to make it here, but I didn't feel like following it exactly because I knew I didn't have all of the ingredients.  So I did a lot of eyeballing & tasting, and guess what - it turned out AMAZING. 

This is not only a great comfort-food recipe for all you vegans out there, but also totally low-carb, with some added protein comin' from the beans!  GO ME!! 

Vegan Spaghetti Squash Alfredo
1 spaghetti squash, quartered (& all the seeds scraped out)
Olive oil
About 8-10oz fresh spinach
1 can of cooked chickpeas / garbanzo beans (no salt added, preferably - drained)
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Soymilk (unsweetened), or Almond milk, about 1/4 to 1/2 a cup
Vegan butter (optional), about 1-2 tbsp
Garlic Salt, about 1 tbsp
Nutmeg, about 1 tsp
Nutritional yeast (about 2-3 tbsp)
Boiling water

Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Drizzle the spaghetti squash with the olive oil, and place flesh-side-down on a cookie sheet with a rimmed edge.  Place in the oven & cook for about 40-50 minutes, or until tender.

Scrape the spaghetti squash out with a fork crosswise into a casserole dish (it will come out looking just like spaghetti!  Just like the name, eh?).  Toss the spinach in, and set aside.

In a food processor, dump in the chickpeas and a little splash of boiling water.  Pulse until slightly smooth, then add in the rest of the ingredients on the list and continue to pulse.  Season to taste (I was a little generous with the garlic salt).  Don't add too much soymilk initially - see how thick you want it.  It's best to have it a little runny at this point.

Dump everything over your squash, and mix well (you'll need to get it all the way to the bottom).  Place in the oven for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees, or until bubbly.  The sauce will thicken a bit after this!



VOILA!!  A gorgeously delicious dish!!  :)  
This was great re-heated the next day too.  I always love leftovers!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thank you for posting this recipe. It seriously looks so delicious.
I'm making this for dinner tonight! :)