This Roasted Garlic Cashew Cream Pasta is unbelievably creamy with delicious roasted garlic flavor that delivers in every single bite! Best part? It’s only 5 ingredients!
Pasta is a love/hate relationship with me. I love love love it. See: Butternut Squash Fettuccine Alfredo, Pasta Bolognese, or my Cheesy Pesto Spaghetti Pie! I love how you can change it up so often!
However, there are times when it can be a type of “trigger” food for me. To explain, I mean that sometimes I get into a paralyzed state remembering how many carbs are in it and that diet culture has made it out to be this “indulgent” food that should only be eaten in small portions. Hence, due to my past eating disorder, sometimes I can get a little antsy about eating it. You can read more about my eating disorder journey here.
BUT. It’s a New Year, y’all. And this year, I’m resolving to EAT MORE PASTA. Oh yes. Specifically this Roasted Garlic Cashew Cream Pasta!
I promise I’m not turning into a Vegan blog – however, you can honestly hard tell there isn’t a single ounce of dairy in this pasta. It’s SO super creamy – I thought I may have blacked out and added 3 tbsp of butter to my pasta like I normally do. But alas, it’s dairy free y’all!
However – don’t expect this to taste exactly like an extra cheesy, heavy cream filled alfredo sauce. It’s a little bit more earthy thanks to the cashews. The roasted garlic adds a smoky sweet element to the dish that you wouldn’t have otherwise. You get such an amazing depth of flavor by roasting it vs just adding it in raw. The sauce is extra silky smooth and so flavorful. Let’s get into making it!
Ingredients you Need for Roasted Garlic Cashew Cream Pasta:
- salted cashews
- water to soak the cashews, blend the cashews + boil the pasta in!
- one extra large bulb of garlic
- choice of pasta (I used Banza’s shells which I’m currently obsessed with)
- spinach (to add in at the end – totally optional)
How to Make Roasted Garlic Cashew Cream Pasta:
First, make sure and soak your cashews in water. 2-3 hours should be plenty of time for soaking! After they have finished soaking, make sure to rinse them thoroughly and drain the water they were soaking in.
Set those aside and get your garlic roasting! Preheat your oven to 400. Cut the top of your garlic head off and peel as much of the garlic’s “skin” off as you can – trying to basically expose the top halves of the small bulbs. Drizzle a bit of olive oil on top and salt and pepper. Wrap up in aluminum foil and place it directly in the oven. Roast for 40-45 minutes. Once done, open up the foil and let it cool down. It should look something like this:
Now that you have your cashews and roasted garlic cloves, add these to a high powered blender. Add water and a big pinch of salt and pepper (I did about ½ tsp of salt and ¼ tsp of pepper).
Blend until it’s completely smooth!! Once it’s silky smooth, just leave it in the blender while you get your pasta ready!
Go ahead and cook your pasta according to the box instructions – for shells it’s usually about 8-10 minutes or until al dente. Drain your noodles. Add your roasted garlic cashew cream sauce directly into the pot that you cooked your pasta in. Keep it on low heat and stir back in your noodles – giving the cashew cream a chance to get warm. Don’t keep the heat too high at all or it will start boiling or cooking the noodles even more which is NOT what you want. You just want everything to be warm. Once warm, season to taste with more salt and pepper. Optional: stir in some spinach for those extra nutritional vibes.
And yup – that’s basically it! I love this dish SO much. I hope you guys do too!!
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Roasted Garlic Cashew Cream Pasta
This Roasted Garlic Cashew Cream Pasta is unbelievably creamy with delicious roasted garlic flavor that delivers in every single bite! Best part? It’s only 5 ingredients!
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups salted cashews
- 1 and 1/2 cups water
- 1 extra large garlic bulb
- drizzle of olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
Pasta
- 1 8 oz. box of shells (I used Banza!)
- spinach (optional add in at the end)
Instructions
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Soak the cashews in a large bowl covering them with water for 2-3 hours prior to cooking time. Once they are done soaking, rinse them thoroughly and drain the water they are soaking in. Set aside.
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While the cashews are soaking, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Cut the top off the garlic head - exposing each clove inside and ripping off as much white "garlic skin" as possible. Place on aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Wrap the garlic in the aluminum foil and roast for 40-45 minutes.
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Once the garlic is done, unwrap and let it cool. Once cooled, squeeze from the bottom of the garlic bulb, and each little clove should pop out! Place the roasted garlic cloves, cashews and 1.5 cups of water in a high powered blender.
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Place the roasted garlic cloves, cashews and 1.5 cups of water in a high powered blender. Blend until extra smooth and extra creamy! Set aside for now.
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Cook your pasta shells according to your box directions - or until al dente. Drain your noodles once they are done. To the pot that your noodles were cooking, add in your cashew sauce. Let it warm on simmer/low heat. Add your noodles back into the pot and mix together when you're ready to consume! Season with salt and pepper to taste!
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Optional: Add fresh spinach to the pasta when warm - it will wilt quickly!
Recipe Notes
Don't let your noodles/sauce mixture get TOO hot on the stove or otherwise it will burn and/or your noodles will be way overcooked! Just a nice simmer on the stove to keep everything warm should do the trick!
I’m all about cashew cream as a replacement for dairy! Love how creamy this looks Haylie, and the roasted garlic is a nice touch!
Thanks so much, Leanne!! Cashew cream is the absolute best replacement for dairy!!
Wowww this is some of the best pasta sauce I’ve ever had!! So creamy and perfectly flavourful. Will definitely be making it over and over again 😊
Thank you so much, Nikki! So happy to hear you loved it 🙂
As a vegan, I can say this looks like one of the best non-dairy mac and cheese recipes I’ve seen. I am very excited to try it.
Wow! Thanks for the compliment, Ali! Hope you love it <3
This cashew cream is so yummy! I put it on roasted cauliflower and it was delicious, can’t wait to try it with pasta!
Anna, so glad you liked it! Sounds delicious with the roasted cauliflower!! YUM! 🙂
I couldn’t believe this was vegan!! Lol!!! I loved how it didn’t need load me down and make me feel sluggish like normal pasta sauces do. Thank u for an awesome recipe!
Thank you so much, Kayla! This made me so happy to read!! 🙂
Haylie, Thank you for sharing this delicious and easy recipe! I tried it yesterday with company, which I don’t like to do before trying it myself, and everyone loved it! (whew) In fact, my company was afraid to come eat at my home because he knew I cooked vegetarian. He really was pleasantly surprised and glad he didn’t turn down our offer. It is so creamy and tasty! The roasted garlic gives it such a nice flavor and I too love sauces made with Cashews! This recipe has been added to my notebook of frequently used recipes. I will definitely be making this again.
Lynne! This review just made my whole week! Thank you so much for entrusting this recipe to make when company is coming over! 🙂 Yay!!!
So yummy! I added extra herbs and spices and it was tasty and overall not heavy like normal pasta. Thanks for the recipe!
Thank you so much, Andrea!! So glad you enjoyed this recipe 🙂 I like how it’s lighter as well.
I am not a vegetarian by any stretch of the imagination but had to give this recipe a try. It was so simple, yet so good! I did add a little parm though 🙂
Thank you, Julia! So glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
About to try this tomorrow, I have peeled garlic cloves instead of a bulb, can I get them in half drizzle in olive oil, salt and pepper and roast them like that?
I plan on roasting them with red bell pepper as well for the color and nutritional value,
Thank you
Hi Zainab! Thanks for the comment – you can definitely roast the garlic that way. Here’s a blog post I found that might be helpful in how to roast peeled garlic that has amazing reviews! https://healthyrecipesblogs.com/roasted-garlic-recipe/ Hope this helps! Enjoy the recipe!
Hi –
I was wondering if you have to use raw cashews. Or if roasted cashews also works?
Thanks!
Hi Elisa – I’ve never tried it before but I think using roasted cashews should work fine! I hope you enjoy the recipe! 🙂
I loved the recipe! I tried it but did not add garlic because I don’t like it; perhaps I should give it a try! Thank you for sharing this recipe, Haylie.
Thank you!!