Creamy Vegan Alfredo Sauce

Creamy, velvety, easy to make, alfredo sauce that’s 100% vegan! PUH-LEEZ tell me this is a real thing in the world? What was that? Oh wait… it is?! OH EM GEE. Friends, you do not want to miss out on this Creamy Vegan Alfredo Sauce recipe.

Sauce dripping from a spoon into a silver measuring cup.

This plant-based alfredo sauce is made with 10 simple and natural ingredients including cauliflower, garlic, shallots, and nutritional yeast. That’s right – no processed vegan cream cheese or butter!

Let’s be real for a second, because you knoooow the story about the alfredo sauce at Olive Garden and how it contains a crazy amount of calories and fat and unhealthy animal products.

People order that there, not even knowing that it has more calories than you should eat in one entire day. That’s the way our world is.

But here, I’ve tested this recipe for creamy alfredo sauce using plants only and I am so pleased with the velvety texture that it’s a must for the blog right now.

And I don’t even have a super fancy extra blendy blender. I used my regular ol’ $30 blender I got with my 20% off coupon at Bed & Bath and this sauce came out CREAMY AF ? (and delicious AF, too).

Update: we got a new blender…

In going back through to update our older recipes, I figured I should admit we have upgraded to a serious blender. The $30 blender did the job so there’s nothing wrong if you have that, but our new Vitamix has been amazing. Everything comes out creamier than ever and we absolutely love it!

Alfredo sauce being poured on vegan tortellini.

Perfecting this creamy vegan alfredo sauce recipe:

When thinking of an alfredo recipe, I thought of many different ingredients I could try. I already have a similar recipe for a white wine alfredo which uses cashews and white wine, of course.

This time however, I wanted to make a sauce that doesn’t use any cashews but still has the creaminess of a traditional alfredo sauce.

This creamy AF sauce is made with blended cauliflower. Now I know what you’re thinking, you’ve tried a cauliflower alfredo recipe and the texture was still not right. I’ve done that too! Being honest, I was totally turned off from the cauliflower alfredo trend for quite some time.

Then one day I thought to myself, “Stop with the excuses, girl! Pasta-based is missing a traditional cheesy alfredo sauce! Get on it already!”

So I got to experimenting and testing and eating wayyyy too much pasta then I would care to admit (even for an Italian food blog) then BAM! it was ready. The recipe came out BOMB ? with a few simple ingredients.

I used this vegan alfredo recipe to smother some homemade tortellini. There is nothing like tortellini alfredo with peas. Totally inspired by every tortellini dish I had growing up. You can use it with any type of pasta you want – fettuccine alfredo anyone? Ohhh damn.

Creamy, velvety, easy to make, alfredo sauce that’s 100% vegan!

Course:

Dinner, Pasta, Sauce

Cuisine:

Italian, Vegan

Keyword:

alfredo, cauliflower, nutritional yeast, pasta, sauce

Servings: 4 servings

Calories per Serving: 86 kcal

2
tablespoons
olive oil
(separated)
2
cloves
garlic
minced (large cloves)
1
bulb
shallot
thinly sliced
1/2
cup
unsweetened almond milk*
1
cup
vegetable broth
2
cups
cauliflower florets
2
heaping tablespoons
nutritional yeast
1
tablespoon
lemon juice
1/4
teaspoon
salt and pepper
each

In a medium saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil on medium heat. Add minced garlic and sliced shallot. Cook until brown and fragrant.
Stir in almond milk and vegetable broth. Increase heat and bring to a low boil.
Add cauliflower florets, lower heat back to medium, cover and cook for 10 minutes or until cauliflower florets are soft.
In a blender, add the ingredients from the saucepan, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, another tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper. Blend on high until creamy and smooth, about five minutes. Add more vegetable broth or olive oil as needed for the consistency you prefer.