Winter is most definitely pasta season, and you can bet there will be unapologetic indulgence at any given opportunity!
Pasta can get a bad rep for being ‘unhealthy’ and someone tells you this – tune out, block, delete, unfriend. You don’t need that sort of negativity in your life! Luckily, we don’t always have to regretti our spaghetti – this vegan and gluten free recipe is jam-packed with veggies and tastes amazing. Plus, you’ll feel like a true MasterChef after creating and tasting the pumpkin sauce because it truly is to die for.
Let’s get cooking!
INGREDIENTS:
- 100g Plantasy Foods Gluten Free Pasta Rigatoni
- ½ butternut pumpkin, sliced into 1cm widths
- 3 cloves of garlic
- ⅓ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 cup Swiss Brown mushrooms, sliced
- ½ a brown onion, diced
- Large handful of baby spinach
- Large handful of sage leaves, stems removed
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- Pinch of sea salt
METHOD:
- Preheat the oven to 200ºC and line a baking tray with baking paper (or a silicone baking mat)
- Arrange the sliced pumpkin evenly on the baking tray. Chop the ends off the cloves of garlic and place them on the tray with the pumpkin. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.
- With about 15 minutes left on the timer, begin to heat olive oil in a large fry pan and add the onion and sage to cook for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to boil.
- Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook for 5 minutes with a dash of balsamic vinegar.
- Add the rigatoni to the boiling water and cook according to package instructions. Reserve a cup of starchy pasta water.
- Once cooked, add the pumpkin and garlic (you should be able to squeeze the soft garlic out of the skin) to a blender with nutritional yeast and half a cup of pasta water and blend. Add more water if the sauce is too thick.
- Once the pasta is cooked, drain and add to the pan along with the pumpkin sauce. Add a dash more pasta water to allow the sauce to coat the pasta.
- Serve and garnish with a handful of fresh spinach or rocket and enjoy!