Smoked Tomato Pasta with Creamy Cashew Sauce

This is a really nice and quick creamy, rich sauce that pairs well with a lot of different meals.  You can get some phenomenal textures and flavor profiles once you get the base consistency.

1 pound whole grain pasta (we prefer Rigatoni, Fusilli, Farfalle, or Penne but anything works)

Sauce:

3/4C Cashews

1/3C Nutritional Yeast

4 Garlic Cloves (chopped or minced)

2t Oregano

1t Paprika      

1.5C Vegetable Broth

16oz Fire Roasted Tomatoes, Diced

Optional Toppings:

Fresh basil, sun dried tomatoes, Za’atar, or Turmeric

Place the cashews into a bowl of water and allow them to soak for approximately an hour.  Begin cooking the pasta of your choice.  Place 1.5 cup of vegetable broth and cashews in your blender or food processor and blend on high until a milky consistency forms.  Add the diced and fire roasted tomatoes and blend on low for a minute.  Finally, add in the nutritional yeast, oregano, paprika and garlic and blend on low until the sauce develops a homogeneous consistency.  If the sauce is a good consistency, heat on low in a sauce pan until your pasta is done.  If the sauce appears too thin for your liking, pour the mixture into a pan and cook on medium heat until the excess liquid boils off and you reach a viscosity of your liking.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain the pasta and place it back into the pot you cooked it in.  Pour in the sauce and mix together to get a nice coating on all the pasta. 

Serve with fresh basil, sun dried tomatoes, or some of our favorite spices like Turmeric or Za’atar.

Prep time is about 25 minutes

Serves 6