Avocado Pasta with Smoky Pecans. This 20 Minute Creamy Avocado Basil Sauce is great over spaghetti or zoodles. Serve with smoky spicy pecans for amazing flavor. Vegan Soyfree Recipe. Can be nutfree.
The minute your avocado is ripe and you realize you don’t want an avocado toast, enter this Creamy and Easy Avocado Pasta sauce! I mean it is practically avocado toast. Flour stuff, avocado and toasty pecans :)/
Simple everyday ingredients, super quick and great when paired with some smoky roasted pecans (or use tempeh crumbles or vegan bacon bits etc). Add a side salad for a filling dinner.
This pasta is great for summer. Not too hot, not too heavy.
Easy, Creamy, Dreamy, Smoky! How do you use up your avocado?
More Pastas from the blog
- Garlic Pasta with Cajun Cauliflower – super popular
- Rose Sauce Farfalle – so Creamy!
- Lentil Bolognese with Spaghetti.– Hearty
- Cauliflower Parmesan Pasta Bake – sliced cauliflower, baked then dressed in vegan mozz, baked over pasta
- Pumpkin Sage Pasta with pumpkin cream sauce and crisp Sage . so good.
- Black pepper Mac and Cheese with Potato Carrot Cheese Sauce
- Chickpea Chorizo, Quinoa shells in tomato sauce. GF – So Meaty.
Most of these can be made gluten-free by using gluten-free pasta. Confession, no one in my house really likes avocado, they just tolerate it in certain ways. This includes me 🙂 . Have you noticed the dearth of avocado toasts on the blog or my instagram? It just doesn’t agree with my tummy that way. This pasta, in dressing overs tacos or guacamole is how we use it most frequently.
Avocado Pasta with Smoky Pecans
Ingredients
- 8 oz (226.8 g) pasta such as spaghetti
- 1 ripe avocado
- 1 small clove of garlic or 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/4 cup (6 g) packed basil , plus additional for garnish
- 3/4 cup (187.5 ml) water
- 1/2 tsp (0.5 tsp) salt
- 1 tsp nutritional yeast
- black pepper or cayenne
- zest of 1/2 a lemon divided
Smoky Pecans:
- 1/2 cup (49.5 g) chopped pecans
- 1 tsp oil
- 1/2 tsp (0.5 tsp) smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp (0.5 tsp) sweet paprika
- 1/4 tsp (0.25 tsp) garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp (0.25 tsp) salt
- 1/4 tsp (0.25 tsp) oregano
Instructions
- Cook the pasta/spaghetti according to package instructions, Drain.
- Blend the avocado with the rest of the ingredients and zest of quarter of a lemon. add more water as needed. Taste and adjust flavor.
- Make the smoky pecans (or use smoky tempeh , see notes): You can Bake or cook on the stove top: Add oil to the pecans and mix well. Add the spices, mix to coat and bake at 325 degrees F for for 15-20 minutes.Skillet: Add pecans and oil to a skillet over medium heat. Cook for 3 to 4 mins,, stir occasionally to roast. Add the spices and salt and mix in. Cook for half a minute.
- Mix the avocado sauce and pasta. Garnish with the smoky pecans, chopped basil, remaining lemon zest and serve.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Joy
awesome and so creative – would love to hear ideas of other things to do with the sauce besides pasta and veggie noodles. I tried it on eggplant and the eggplant overpowered the sauce – I wonder what else could this pair with that would let the sauce shine? thanks you have become my go to site for everything!
Vegan Richa Support
Zucchini has a much milder flavour than eggplant. I like adding it to grilled veggie wraps or just atop grilled or sauteed veggies. Quinoa would be a nice partner with this sauce and on my portobello mushroom burger on this link: would be nice as well Vegan Portobello Mushroom Burger or my other vegan burger options =) I hope this gives you some good ideas to enjoy Joy!!
Sarah
Just made it! It was very delicious. I added some chilli flakes on top for extra spice :)!
Vegan Richa Support
cool! I put chilli flakes on everything
Jennifer Lucas
This is one of the best pasta sauces I have ever had! It’s great on other stuff too! So easy to make and soooooo satisfying to eat!
Vegan Richa Support
wow! awesome. exactly – it can jazz just about anything up. glad you enjoyed it
Louise M Harmon
This was SO good! I made it with Tempeh instead of Pecans. However, I punched up the seasonings in the Tempeh by adding a little Wright’s Liquid Smoke, along with some nutritional yeast, a few diced sun-dried tomatoes (oil-packed), extra garlic powder, some onion powder, a teaspoon of maple syrup, a little balsamic vinegar and low-sodium soy sauce.
Richa
yum
Megan
Delicious! At first the sauce seemed too runny but no it was just right and the pecans put it over the top. I can get avocadoes locally all year so, glad to have a recipe for them!
Emily
Had an avocado to use up and whipped this up for lunch. No one got to taste it as i ate it all! so good!
Richa
awesome!
Jemma
What a simple, creative, and delicious dish! This will be on regular rotation for sure!
Netal Dhawan
Hi,
Can I skip the nutritional yeast called for by the recipe?
Richa
yes. add a tsp of miso if you have that
Nichole
I am wondering if this dish could be served room temperature. I’d like to prepare it in advance, say earlier in the day, and serve it room temperature to guests.
Many thanks
Richa
The avocado might start to brown if kept for too long. It did fine while i was photographing for about 1.5 hours. So maybe blend up the sauce and refrigerate it in a container that doesnt have too much air space. Then mix in with the pasta somewhat close to serving time. the pecans or tempeh can be made ahead easily.
Katie
I made this recipe recently and enjoyed it. I didn’t love the texture of the sauce, but it was a fine sauce to toss some Sriracha in.
I used walnuts instead of pecans and it worked really and was really the star of the show. The spice mixture was really good!
All in all, I didn’t love the recipe but it was super quick and I recommend giving it a try if you have the ingredients on hand.
Katie
I forgot to mention- the leftovers kept well over two nights for me.
Richa
Maybe thin out the sauce a bit more with the pasta water? Or use a simple pesto sauce instead. Good to know that it kept for 2 days.
Sheila
I agree, this pasta is wonderful–very creamy and satisfying. I sprinkled it with toasted walnuts (time crunch) but next time will make the smokey pecans…..
Minica
Can I refrigerate this sauce? How long does it stay fresh in the fridge?
Richa
About 1 day in a container that fits the sauce with minimum air in the container. Avocado generally will brown, so the sauce is best made fresh. it takes 5 mins.
Theresa
Tried this tonight as I had a fresh batch of basil growing. We really enjoyed it. I find regular pesto a little overpowering, however with your recipe, the addition of the avocado helped mellow the flavour and the lemon freshened it up. The smoky pecans were very yummy.
Richa
awesome!
Ida
Oh YES! I’ve been looking at this recipe for days while awaiting for the avocado to ripen. Definitely worth the wait. I didn’t make any changes to the recipe (well, I take that back as I used beet/zucchini noodles in place of pasta). Absolutely incredible recipe filled with satisfaction and flavor. Meat eating husband chose my dinner over his roast. Yah!
Richa
ha! fantastic!
Maneesha
So delicious!! I made this for lunch, and it is amazing!! I love the smoky pecans!
Richa
Awesome!
Cassie Thuvan Tran
I’d still use overripe avocados for this recipe! Looks so perfect. Would this recipe work with bean-based pasta?
Richa
sure
Gabby @ Putumayo Kitchen
This looks so good! I absolutely love avocado pasta, especially with zucchini noodles when the weather is warmer. The pecans look and sound incredible too…. I can imagine they are such a good balance of sweet and smokey! Thanks for sharing xx