Satisfy your comfort-food cravings with this easy vegan alfredo pasta dish. The creamy sauce features a base of blended celeriac, a relative of celery that is cultivated for the bulbous section of its root. You can often find it at grocery stores under the name celery root. Adding fresh broccoli florets to the pasta water during the last few minutes of cooking lends extra color, texture, and sweetness to this tasty dish. We used penne pasta here, but you can pair the sauce with whole-grain fettuccine, linguine, spirals, or whatever hits the spot.
By Leslie Williams,
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After years of experimentation, Leslie Williams healed her chronic digestive and respiratory disease by adopting a plant-based diet. The former content manager for Forks Meal Planner, Williams is also a recipe developer and content producer, photographer, and overall vegetable enthusiast. She lives in Los Angeles and loves to surprise friends with quality fruit and healthy, flavorful food.
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Comments (34)
Delicious recipe. I wasn’t too familiar with celeriac but have made this several times and it’s delicious. I like to add a little heat. I find that you can steam the onions and garlic with the celeriac if you don’t want to clean another pot. Also seems to freeze just fine…pasta might not be as toothy but fine for a quick lunch!
Great, easy recipe. Subbed pasta and broccoli for spaghetti and broccolini which worked really well.
My children eat it! Enough said-lol.
I really wish you’d give your recipes in suggested portion numbers instead of number of cups. 12 cups does not give me any idea how many portions. I am assuming 8 because a portion of pasta is usually 2 ounces.
I don’t make many of your recipes because they generally make way too much for 2 people. A few I have managed to cut in half, and they work.
I guess you are aiming at families rather than older people who generally are two or even singles.
I am cooking for only myself. I like to store individual portions in the freezer so that I always have food available for nights when I am too tired to cook. After going to all the trouble of chopping vegetables, sautéing, and cooking, it doesn’t make sense to only make one meal. I PREFER to have plenty of extra servings for later in the week AND put some up in the freezer! I usually choose 3 recipes to make on the weekend, and then rotate through them during the week for lunches and dinners. So, I don’t care how many servings it is.
I agree. As an English Chef I do not understand how many people 12 cups serves?
I make fresh Pasta 100g flour to 1 egg per person.
Based on that I would say this would be for 5 people.
However there is far too much sauce to just coat the pasta. Enough left over for a bowl of soup
Different sized people with differing activity levels need different quantities of food. I actually prefer cups, because my portion size differs from most.
Blah! It is nothing like the the Fetuccine Alfredo that I used to eat at the Front Porch in Greenwich Village in NYC.
After tasting it, I tried to improve it with Trader Joe’s fire roasted tomatoes and adding cashews. It improved it slightly. But even with the upgrade, I’d never make it again.
I admit, I’m a meat based eater, but I’ve found several vagan recipe and several plant based recipes with no oil, that I’ve loved. But this recipe has no reason to come back to it.
Has anyone found a way to improve it? Thanks
I just finished making this dish, I have loads of sauce left over, did this happen to anyone else? can the sauce be frozen for another time as I hate to wast about three quarters of it.
Just made this, using ingredients I already had (subbed celery for celeriac and asparagus for broccoli) and this was quite tasty! A light and refreshing creamy sauce that does not dull the flavors of your food. I used it with some chickpea pasta that I was dreading eating (it’s much heavier than regular pasta), and it really saved the day. I don’t think this will make it into the regular rotation, because I will never buy that pasta again, and I don’t generally crave creamy sauces, but it sure did the trick today, and I would consider making it again if the situation called for it.
This was amazing! I added organic pesto and white meso to give it body, those ingredients along with organic sun dried tomatoes and asparagus tips. I would have added capers, but I ran out of them. My spouse, thought it was simply yummy, and that’s good enough for me.
Can I use something else to substitute the yellow onion? I’m allergic.
I made this over the winter when I was getting celeriac in every CSA share. I had some left over roasted butternut squash that I added to the sauce, which gave it just a hint if sweetness. It was a hit! Like some other reviewers, I had lots of sauce left, and just used it in another meal. I measure my pasta, and kept the sauce separate (pasta will absorb the sauce). Easy enough to just cook some pasta and add the leftover sauce for another meal. I think the sauce by itself will feeeze okay.
I’m allergic to all aliums, sulfuric veggies, garlic onions, asparagus. I’ve found that Fennel bulbs sliced or chopped, sautéed and caramelized in vegan butter really works! Bonus if you have Indian Black Sea salt and can tolerate a bit of sulfur, it will add more of flavor. The Indian Black Sea salt with nutritional yeast and chickpea flour makes a fantastic egg replacement too. Hopefully this helps,Good luck!
Made this last night and it was a hit! I did use veg stock instead of water to thin out the sauce & i think it added a bit more depth. based on other user reviews i sprinkled mine with capers, which added a nice punch. A squeeze of lemon always makes everything better 😉
This pasta is so delicious!! My picky eater teen daughter loved it! She loves soups with celery on it so she really enjoyed the flavor of this pasta. It was a very yummy comfort food. I will definitely make it again!!!
You need to be a fan of celeriac, otherwise it may be overwhelming. My husband wasn’t crazy about it, but I enjoyed it and I want to try it again but next time perhaps add some tomato sauce or pesto to try and win my husband’s taste buds 😉
This was excellent! Served it with a spinach salad and we loved it. Definitely going into rotation at our house!
Dmedina, sorry to hear about your onion allergy! The usual substitute for onions, flavor-wise, is asafetida (hing powder). In this recipe, onions are also providing bulk/volume to the sauce, so you could add a bland vegetable of your choice such as cauliflower, squash, or maybe potato. Then just adjust the seasonings to your taste – I see others have used miso and capers, which are salty, and lemon juice, which will brighten the flavor and make it more tangy, just as some examples. Or more garlic, if you can eat it!
Made this last night. It’s very good, but the celery root is a bit overwhelming. Next time I make it, I’ll add some sun-dried tomatoes, red pepper, capers, and maybe even some summer squash to add a bit more flavor. Overall, a very nice meal.
I have a allergy to nuts. What could I substitute?
Try using a White Bean Pesto (I like Plant Base Jane.com). You can add plant based milk to make it creamy if you like also sun dried tomatoes etc.
We use this Pesto for veggie (roasted or fresh) sandwiches or wraps (easy protein), and on French baguettes or crackers.
Tried it and loved it!! Now, it is in my rotation and make it once every week or two. I like it so much better in place of any vegan mac and cheese recipe I have tried. I slip in some mushrooms and asparagus, too. Even my non-vegan friends like it. Def, a keeper!!!
Yummy!!! Nagyon finom ez a szósz!!! Gyorsan elkészíthető és gyorsan megehető. 🙂 Most brokkolival készítettem, de el tudom képzelni zöldborsóval vagy spárgával is. Egyszerű paradicsomsalátával ettük. Köszönet érte!
Would it taste the same without the nutritional yeast, is there a substitute?
Hi Christina! You can omit the nutritional yeast and the result would be very similar and just as delicious. There is not a good substitute for nutritional yeast, so omitting it is the best option. I hope this helps!
I really like this garlicky cheesy dish with a hint of sweetness (maybe that’s just me?) pasta dish. Easy and filling. Plus, there’s broccoli! The leftovers reheat well too.
Yummy dinner recipe that stores great for meal prep option! My daughter also loves this dish.
I’m always on the look out for a new pasta recipe and this one didn’t disappoint. Love that it’s kid-friendly.
Really solid pasta dish.
Celeriac is a definite unsung hero. I love the unique flavor it brings to this dish!
Broccoli and creamy/cheesy pasta is one of my favorite combos. This recipe is a good intro to celery root.
This recipe is spot on!
Great for a Saturday night.