Silky Roasted Bell Pepper Sauce with Pasta, Zucchini, and Basil Ribbons
This sauce recipe is a treasure and worth adding to virtually any dish you can conceive of. Feel free to omit all/some of the pasta noodles and replace them with all zucchini noodles for a lighter dish.
Servings: 4
Calories: 553kcal
Ingredients
Silky Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
- 12 ounces soft silken tofu or steamed cauliflower florets
- 2-3 red bell peppers roasted*, chopped
- 3-4 garlic cloves minced
- 1 ½ tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast or grated Parmesan cheese
- ¾ teaspoon Kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Pasta
- 1 pound long pasta spaghetti, linguine, or fettuccine
- 4 medium zucchini about 4-5 inches long
- 1 cup basil sliced into thin strips
Instructions
Silky Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
- Place all the ingredients in a blender or food processor. Run on high until sauce is smooth.** Pour into a small saucepan and set aside on stove.
Pasta
- Bring a large pot of salted cold water to boil. Cook pasta according to package directions.
- While pasta cooks, prepare the zucchini. Thinly slice with a knife or spiralize to create long zucchini ribbons that roughly mimic the shape and size of the pasta noodles. As Thug Kitchen says "don't spend all day trying to make this happen".
- A couple minutes before the pasta finishes cooking, start heating the sauce you made earlier. You want to warm it up, but you don't want to simmer it.
- Once the pasta is cooked al dente, drain it, and put it in a large bowl. Add the zucchini ribbons to the hot pasta, then add the warmed sauce. Toss everything together, so the heat from the pasta and sauce will soften the zucchini. Fold in the basil.
- Serve with additional red wine vinegar, salt,and red pepper flakes on the table.
Notes
*To roast your own red peppers, either blacken on the center of a gas stove burner (if you're lucky enough to have one) or heat the oven to 400 F, line a baking sheet with foil, put your peppers on the sheet, and roast for 25 minutes. Turn over, and continue roasting another 25 minutes. With either method, they should look charred and soft.
Tightly wrap the charred red peppers in foil so no steam escapes. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes.
Peel the burnt skin, destem and deseed the pepper, then use.
These can be made up to 2 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator.
**Depending on your blender, you may need to add a little vegetable or chicken stock to get the puree going (I didn't, but I have a high-powered blender. Start with ¼ cup stock if your blender has trouble). Nutrition facts shown are for a 7 ounce portion of sauce as well as pasta.
Tightly wrap the charred red peppers in foil so no steam escapes. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes.
Peel the burnt skin, destem and deseed the pepper, then use.
These can be made up to 2 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator.
**Depending on your blender, you may need to add a little vegetable or chicken stock to get the puree going (I didn't, but I have a high-powered blender. Start with ¼ cup stock if your blender has trouble). Nutrition facts shown are for a 7 ounce portion of sauce as well as pasta.
Nutrition
Serving: 7ounces | Calories: 553kcal | Carbohydrates: 99g | Protein: 23g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 470mg | Potassium: 1124mg | Fiber: 7g | Sugar: 11g | Vitamin A: 2645IU | Vitamin C: 112.9mg | Calcium: 100mg | Iron: 3.5mg