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Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta – 30 mins! Creamy Lemon Alfredo style sauce with tofu with fettuccine and pan roasted garlic asparagus and more lemon. Vegan Nutfree Recipe. Can be Glutenfree. 17 gm of protein Jump to Recipe
Asparagus is abundant and in season. Fresh, crisp and delicious and this lemon asparagus pasta celebrates it perfectly! The pasta comes together in 30 minutes and has this luscious delicious zesty cream sauce. The sauce uses tofu, non dairy milk and herbs for the sauce, See below for soyfree option. Tofu makes the sauce so fluffy creamy! Lemon in various forms at various stages of the sauce, lemon juice and zest in the blended sauce, zest and lemon slices while simmering, make this sauce incredibly tasty! Hubbs couldnt believe it was tofu! and 2 serves went down within minutes.
This Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta is all things Spring. Lemony, Creamy, satisfying and makes a great weeknight meal. The lemon pasta sauce is creamy and delicious. Adjust the flavor of the sauce while simmering to preference. Add a few tbsp of white wine for variation. Lets cook.
Ingredients and Substitutions for Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta
- Tofu makes for a quick and creamy sauce! no soaking the nuts needed. It also picks up the lemon flavor amazingly. To make this soyfree, You can use 1/2 cup cashews with 1.5 cups non dairy milk instead. Or use 1 cup of steamed cauliflower and 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds.
- Use any pasta of choice and use glutenfree if needed.
- The recipe can be easily made without oil. Saute in broth instead.
- Lemon at various stages in various forms, zest and juice in the blended sauce, zest and slices added during simmering is what makes this sauce mindblowingly delicious. No subs there!
Step by Step Photos
The key is to multitask for the various components for a quick meal. Start by bringing a pot of water to a boil for the pasta. Meanwhile, Chop the garlic, onion, mushrooms if using and asparagus. Assemble the sauce ingredients.
Blend the sauce and set aside.
Add pasta to the boiling water. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and Cook for half a minute, then add asparagus, salt, pepper. Toss for a few seconds, then cover and steam until bright green. Transfer to a bowl.
In the same pan add oil and then saute the garlic for a few seconds. Add onion and mushrooms and cook until translucent.
Check on the pasta while the onion is cooking. The pasta should be done by now, drain, rinse with cold water and set aside.
Once the onion is translucent. Add the blended sauce and simmer. Add the zest, slices, cooked asparagus and fettuccine and fold in. Toss well to coat all the pasta. Taste and adjust flavor. Switch off heat, but don’t take the pan off the stove. Cover and let sit for a few minutes for the flavors to meld.
Plate portions, garnish with vegan parm, basil, black pepper/pepper flakes and serve as is or with some garlic bread.
How to make Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta
- Start cooking the pasta. Meanwhile, Asparagus is roasted for a minute with golden garlic, then covered to cook with the steam.
- The sauce uses tofu and lemon, herbs and flavors. Tofu when blended makes for a silky creamy sauce!
- Garlic, onion and mushroom are sauteed, the sauce added and simmered to thicken.
- Then more lemon zest and lemon slices round up the flavor of this fabulous lemon cream sauce. Toss in the pasta and asparagus and serve!
More Pastas from the blog
- Sundried Tomato and Garlic Pasta with Soy curls.So beautiful!
- 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
- Chickpea Chorizo, Quinoa shells in tomato sauce. GF – So Meaty.
Vegan Lemon Asparagus Pasta
Ingredients
- 8 oz fettuccine or other pasta, , glutenfree pasta if needed
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic, , finely chopped
- 1 lb asparagus, , chopped into 2 inch pieces, remove tough bottom stem
- dash of salt and black pepper
Lemon Cream Sauce:
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 3-4 cloves of garlic, , finely chopped
- 1/3 cup chopped onion
- 2 oz sliced mushroom, optional
- 7 oz firm tofu, or silken tofu
- 1 cup non dairy milk, such as almond or soy
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- zest of half a lemon
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- 1/4 tsp ground mustard
- 1-2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp flour, , use starch or rice flour to make glutenfree
- 2 tsp italian seasoning, (I like 1 tsp basil, 1/2 tsp parsley, 1/3 tsp rosemary)
- zest of the other half of the lemon
- 3-4 thin lemon slices
- pepper flakes, ,black pepper, vegan parm for garnish
Instructions
- Cook the fettuccine according to instructions on the package, rinse in cold water and set aside. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for half a minute.
- Add asparagus, pinch of salt and black pepper and mix. Cover to cook/steam for 3 mins or until bright green. Transfer to a bowl.
- Add oil to the same skillet over medium heat, add garlic and cook for a few seconds. Add onion and mushrooms and cook for 2 mins
- Meanwhile, blend ingredients from tofu to flour until smooth. Add the blended sauce to the skillet, add herbs, and mix in. Bring to a simmer. Fold in the rest of the lemon zest, lemon slices. Taste and adjust salt and flavor with additional salt , garlic powder, herbs and some black pepper if needed.
- Add the the cooked pasta and 2/3 of the asparagus and mix in. Cover and take off heat and let the flavors meld for 2 mins.
- Garnish with pepper flakes, black pepper and fresh basil and optional vegan parm and the cooked asparagus. and serve.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Delicious and really easy to make! I used cashews instead of tofu- family loved it! 🥰
Yay!
Wow👏👏👏👏👏 Fantastic flavour using fresh asparagus❤️ I followed the directions exactly with only one change…I used smoked tofu because it’s all I had on hand. Turns out that it gave it a nice earthiness. The sauce was so creamy…never realized that tofu could behave this way!
Thank Richa for this absolutely delicious dish!
So glad it worked out!
This dish is so amazing. It was crazy fast and easy and so good. I invited a non-vegan friend over to eat and she loved it so much that she asked for the recipe. I had no idea tofu could make such a creamy sauce. I made the sauce in the blender, tasted it and immediately doubled the recipe. It was so good I knew one batch wouldn’t be enough!
yay!
Not surprising at all, yet again another amazing dish. This is so decadent yet healthy. A lemony-garlicky delight. I added all herbs as the recipe called for and it was just so flavorful. Thank you again Richa for a meal I will add to rotation.
Yay! Thank you for your review!
This was absolutely delicious! It came together in 30 minutes. (I omitted the onion, yet the flavors were spot on). We will be passing this recipe around and making it often.
yay!
Just made this as I had some asparagus to use. It was quick, easy and delicious. I probably should have blended for a bit longer to make the sauce look better – but it tasted amazing!
yay!
This was a perfect dish that felt perfect for an early Spring meal. We added a few different veggies to give it more weightiness. Loved it – thank you!
Wonderful!
Yum! This was so easy and delicious. I love the concept of using tofu as the base for a sauce instead of cashews and the lemon + asparagus combination was of course delicious. Definitely worth making again. 🙂
its a nice change
Excellent! Quick and easy just as described! Thank you, Richa!
I’m so glad you enjoyed.
My sauce curddled. 🙁 What did I do wrong? I used soy milk, silken tofu, fresh squeezed lemon and all purpose GF flour.
I think it’s either the soy milk or the gf flour. The flour doesn’t thicken like regular flour so the lemon might have got the time to react with the soymilk. It’s prob mot curdled but just separated.,you can add cornstarch and cook to thicken it. Blending it really well also would help in the future , also blend in 2 tsp cornstarch
I was looking for a spring dinner party pasta dish and this hit the mark! I made this as written for a trial run. Loved it! For the dinner party of all non-vegans (except me), including at least one non-veggie lover, I decided to make it without asparagus and with spinach on the side. I encouraged mixing the spinach in with the linguini and sauce. It was a hit! Perfect amount of lemon and garlic flavor, so creamy. Also quick and easy enough to make this for weeknight dinners.
sounds like a great 🎊 party