Cauliflower Alfredo Sauce (vegan, gluten-free, oil-free)

I tend to rely on cashews a lot of vegan sauces of all kinds. I had a bunch of cauliflower sitting in the fridge so I thought, why not try to turn this into a sauce? While I do love cashews, I always welcome new challenges and adding some variety in my diet is always a good idea. The thing that puts me off using veggies as sauce is that a lot of recipes require them to be cooked or roasted in advance which isn't really time efficient. So I thought, why not blend first and then heat it up? And it worked perfectly! Because it's all liquified, it takes much less time to cook. And dare I say, tastes a lot less like cauliflower this way. I still added 1/4 cup of cashews to give it more creaminess, but I have made this recipe both with and without, so it's completely optional. Turns out great either way.

Does it taste exactly like a non-vegan Alfredo sauce? No. But this is a fresh spin that has a similarly rich texture. And it's much healthier! And without any oil to boot. It's been well over 10 years since I had a real Alfredo sauce but from what I remember, I would always feel sick after. That's mainly due to the amount of fat in it. With this recipe, I felt amazing! I had so much energy that I went out for some sprints after eating.

To give you more perspective, 1 cup of real Alfredo sauce has a whopping 102g grams of fat! That's compared to 60grams in this recipe. Still fairly rich, but that's a half and half difference! (Pun intended)

On top of that, cauliflowers have a host of health benefits. 1 cup of cauliflower has:

• Vitamin C (77% of the RDI)
• Vitamin K (20% of the RDI)
• Vitamin B6 (11% of the RDI)
• Folate (14% of the RDI)
• Fiber (10% of the RDI)
• Antioxidants
• Choline (which helps maintain the integrity of cell membranes, synthesizing DNA and supporting metabolism. Moreover, it helps prevent cholesterol from accumulating in the liver)
• Sulforaphane (which was found to have some anti-cancer effects)

and more! (Source) So you really can't go wrong with including more cauliflower in your diet. And this pasta sauce is a great way to do that, especially for those who don't enjoy the taste of cauliflower. The taste is very mild in this recipe! I doubt anyone would know unless you told them. So it'd be a great way to sneak some veggies into your kids' diets as well.

The process of making this recipe is extremely simple. All we have to do is:

• Chop all the veggies
• Blend all the sauce ingredients in the blender
• Cook with mushrooms and onions
• Cook and drain pasta according to package instructions.

And that's it!

For the pasta, I chose a gluten-free casarecce, if only because my local store didn't have any gluten-free fettuccini. But feel free to take your pick! Any pasta will work. I like the serve this gluten-free Cauliflower Alfredo pasta with chopped spring onions and cherry tomatoes. Enjoy!