This creamy lemon pasta is a restaurant quality dish that you can make easily, any day of the week! Impress a guest or more importantly, yourself, with the luscious lemony cream sauce. It will have you swooning as you pour it over your favorite pasta shape – ours is gigli. It looks like a little trumpet!! Queue Jason Derulo. Maybe he can be your dinner guest. This recipe has something to prove and it’s that creamy, rich pasta dishes are attainable anytime.
The sauce is rich and decadent from the cashew cream but brightened with plenty of lemon. It only requires a few simple ingredients and no more than 20 minutes until you’re forking trumpet shaped, cream sauce drenched pasta into your mouth. Steamed broccoli adds texture to the carby decadence of this meal. Creamy lemon pasta is very adaptable. Play around with the pasta shape or vegetable selection. You can even adjust the seasonings in the sauce to give it your own flair. The floor is yours!
What You Need For Creamy Lemon Pasta
Cashew Cream: Once you have your cashew cream, the rest of this recipe is smooth sailing. Save some time by prepping this in advance, following our Savory Cashew Cream recipe (you can halve it).
Lemons: We’re talking juice and zest here. This adds brightness and acidity to the rich sauce.
Vegetable Broth: Broth thins out the sauce and adds a savory, umami flavor. We love using Bouillon paste mixed into hot water. The Vegetarian No Chicken Bouillon would be perfect here!
Nutritional Yeast: Also known as “nooch,” nutritional yeast brings a cheesy element to the sauce.
Gigli Pasta: Our pasta of choice. We get it at Trader Joe’s – attainable! Feel free to substitute with whatever pasta you’d like or use a legume-based pasta for extra protein (or if you’re gluten free!)
Broccoli: You can use any vegetable you want, but we find broccoli holds up well in the sauce and adds the perfect crunch to creamy lemon pasta. Spinach, broccoli rabe, kale, or mushrooms would also be delicious.
How To Make It
- Blend the Sauce: Add the cashew cream, lemon, vegetable broth, and spices to a blender and blend until smooth.
- Steam the Broccoli: Starting with a little water in a pan, steam the broccoli for just a few minutes until it is bright green.
- Cook the Pasta: Cook your pasta ‘al dente’ and save some pasta water if you’d like to thin out your sauce.
- Combine everything!
Watch us make it here or watch the BTS of us trying to make it here!
Creamy Pasta Series
This series is a thing of perfection. How many creamy pastas is too many? The limit does not exist!! All of these vegan pasta dishes start with a batch of savory cashew cream. It’s a convenient plant-based staple to have on hand and will make the prep time for these recipes so minimal. The cashew cream has plenty of other uses if you get creamy pasta-ed out but I’d like to see you try. Check out the other recipes and let us know your favorite in the comments!
Creamy Lemon Pasta
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This creamy lemon pasta is velvety, rich, and flavorful. Gigli pasta holds the sauce perfectly and steamed broccoli rounds out the meal. It all comes together in 20 minutes and is easily adaptable!
Ingredients
Creamy Lemon Sauce:
- 1 1/2 cups savory cashew cream*
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1/4 cup vegetable broth
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1/4 teaspoon red chili flakes
- Salt and pepper to taste
Pasta Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb Gigli Pasta
- 1 head broccoli, washed and chopped
Instructions
- Make the sauce by adding the savory cashew cream, lemon juice, lemon zest, vegetable broth, nutritional yeast, red chili flakes, salt and pepper to a blender and blend until completely smooth.
- In a large pot with generously salted water, cook your pasta according to the ‘al dente’ instructions. Save about 1/2 cup water if you want to thin out your sauce.
- While the pasta cooks, in a skillet on medium high heat add 1/2 inch water to the pan. Add in the broccoli and cover with a lid. Cook for 3-5 minutes or until the broccoli turns bright green. It should be slightly crunchy. Drain and rinse briefly with cold water to stop the cooking process.
- After draining the pasta, add it back into the pot. Add the steamed broccoli and the lemon cream sauce. If you reserved any pasta water, now is the time to add it. Cook on low just until everything is warm and then serve immediately!
Notes
*if you don’t have savory cashew cream pre-made, you can just add 1 cup soaked cashews, 1/2 cup water, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast, and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder to the blender to start. Then add the rest of the sauce ingredients (doubling up on the lemon and nutritional yeast).
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Keywords: vegan, creamy lemon pasta