Learn how to make this delicious roasted cauliflower pasta with a luscious red pepper sauce that takes just minutes to prepare!
Beautiful pasta noodles tangled with perfectly roasted cauliflower and a luscious 5-minute red pepper & tomato sauce! This dish is made for those who love themselves a bowl of pasta but with a little touch of veggies to make things healthier.
The red pepper sauce paired with it is one of the simplest sauces ever and has such impressive flavor! For it, I use cashews for creaminess, jarred roasted red peppers and marinara sauce for lots of flavor.
Ingredients You Need
A lot of the items for this dish are pantry staples and shouldn’t be a problem spotting at your local grocery store! The ingredients you’ll need are: pasta noodles (I used pappardelle), head of cauliflower, roasted red peppers, marinara sauce, raw cashews, olive oil, fresh basil, red peppers flakes, garlic clove, and salt & pepper.
How to Make Cauliflower Pasta with Red Pepper Sauce
First, preheat the oven to 400F. Toss cauliflower florets with oil on a sheet pan and season with salt and garlic powder.
Roast for 30 minutes, flipping cauliflower halfway through.
Making the sauce is the easiest part! Add all of the ingredients to a high-powdered blender. Blend on high for 30 seconds until creamy and smooth.
Heat up sauce in a pan while pasta cooks. Then add to sauce – pasta noodles, roasted cauliflower, and chopped basil. Serve with fresh parmesan if desired and enjoy!
Tips for Success
cashew notes: usually before blending cashews you need to soften them by soaking in water. This step is not necessary if you have a high-powered blender (such as a vitamix, ninja, blendtec, ect.) If you do not have a more powerful blender, then you will need to soak your cashews covered in boiling water for 15 minutes to soften them.
Types of noodles to use: you can use just about any type of pasta for this recipe! Some of my personal favorites are pappardelle, tagliatelle, rigatoni, fusilli, rotini, penne, or bucatini.
Make it gluten free: I absolutely love using chickpea noodles for a healthier pasta. They are noodles made from chickpea flour and are gluten-free friendly and filled with plant-protein. You can also use lentil or brown rice noodles too!
Switch up the veggies: Wanna add even more vegetables to you dish? You can also add roasted broccoli florets, roasted peppers, eggplant or zucchini!
Leftover red pepper sauce: this recipe yields several generous cups of red pepper sauce. You most likely won’t need to use it all at one time, so I like freezing it to serve for another time or keeping it chilled in the fridge. See notes below for tips on freezing & storing this sauce!
Storing Leftovers & Freezing Tips
Storing leftovers: Leftovers in this dish can be stored in an airtight container and refrigerated for up to 3 days. Then reheat in a pan on the stove top. Store leftover red pepper sauce in a mason jar in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.
Freezing tips: the pasta itself can be frozen with the sauce & cauliflower in an airtight container. Then thaw at room temperature and reheated in a pan. There should be quite a bit of red pepper sauce leftover which can be frozen in an airtight container or freezer-friendly ziplock bag for 1-2 months.
This is such a great weeknight pasta dinner but also could work for an elegant date night meal! It’s rich in flavor, has the creamiest sauce, but also doesn’t weigh you down.
Since there is zero cream in the sauce and lots of beautiful plant-based ingredients involved, I find it to be a true crowd-pleaser for any pasta or veggie lover.
More Pasta Dishes for Veggie Lovers
- Lentil Bolognese with Pappardelle Pasta
- Three Cheese Baked Rigatoni with Roasted Vegetables
- Cheesy Rotini Pasta with Roasted Vegetables
- The Best Vegetable Lasagna (no ricotta)
- 6 Ingredient Roasted Eggplant Pasta
Roasted Cauliflower Pasta with Red Pepper Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 8 oz box pasta noodles (see notes)
- 1 medium head cauliflower
- 2 teaspoons oil
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- salt & black pepper to taste
Red Pepper Tomato Sauce
- 12 oz jar roasted red peppers, drained
- 1 1/2 cups marinara
- 1/3 cup raw cashews (see notes)
- 1/3 cup filtered water
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 garlic clove (or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder)
For Serving
- 2 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese for serving *optional
- 2 Tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Prep cauliflower: chop head of cauliflower into small to medium sized florets.
- Roast: lay cauliflower on sheet pan and drizzle with oil, generous pinch of salt, and garlic powder. Toss until evenly coated and bake for 30 minutes, flip halfway through.
- Blend sauce ingredients: add all of red pepper sauce ingredients into a high-powered blender with pinch of salt. Blend on high for 30 seconds until consistency is creamy and smooth. Heat up sauce in small pot on LOW while you prepare the pasta.
- Boil pasta: bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Cook pasta as box instructs or until texture is "Al Dente" in texture. Drain the pasta but leave a tiny bit of pasta water behind with the noodles (several tablespoons of pasta water should work). Note: "al dente" means "to the tooth" – meaning your pasta shouldn't be too soft but should have a slight bite of texture to it!
- Assemble ingredients: in the same pot with the noodles, add 1/2-1 cup red pepper sauce and toss to coat the noodles with the sauce. Then serve with roasted cauliflower, fresh chopped basil, fresh parmesan, and additional red pepper sauce. *Omit parmesan to keep vegan* Enjoy!
This pasta sounds very good to me. I am gonna try it today.
Hope you enjoy it!