Vegan carbonara with white sauce

I have been trying to cook more and am slowly getting more comfortable with the various forms of vegan protein options that are out there. Standard firm tofu I find to be a very fickle mistress, and I prefer using it in stir fries or scrambles, but I decided to finally try silken tofu. Silken tofu is a very creamy version of tofu and works great for sauces, soups, and even desserts – all of which I am planning to experiment with in due course!

Silken tofu (like all tofu) is super high in protein and so makes a great addition to any meal to add a lovely creamy texture to dish whilst also giving a massive amount of protein. It is also flavourless and so can be added to anything without fear of overpowering any other flavours. The one issue I have found with silken tofu is that it is quite hard to find, with the packet below being the only option I was able to find in Tesco, and the other four supermarkets near me that I tried first had none at all. Luckily, silken tofu comes pre-packaged and sealed so you could always find a packet and leave it in your cupboard for as long as needed until you manage to find a chance to try this recipe!

For the sauce

• 1 block silken tofu (roughly 12 oz block)

• 1 medium onion

• 4 cloves garlic

• 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast

• salt and pepper to taste

To cook

1. Boil a pot of water and cook your pasta as needed. I have found that tagliatelle pasta works best as it is a thicker pasta, but this will work with spaghetti too if you prefer that.
2. Roughly chop the garlic and the onions. We are going to blend them so no need to be too careful with the size of the pieces. Keeping them as uniform as possible though will help them all cook at the same time, but as we are blending them they don’t have to be perfectly chopped.
3. Fry the onions and the garlic until the onion has turned transparent. Let the onions brown up a little bit longer if you want to add a slight smoky flavour to the sauce too, which is personally my preferred flavouring.
4. Once cooked, add the onions, garlic and the block of tofu to a blender and blend until it is smooth. You can add some pasta water to help it blend, and can keep adding water if you want to make a more watery sauce. I find half a cup of water is enough for a thick and creamy sauce.
5. Once the sauce is blended smooth, add in your nutritional yeast. Again, the more you add the more of an earthy, slightly nutty taste the sauce will have. I find that 3 tablespoons is the perfect amount of flavour, but if you have never tried nutritional yeast before, do one tablespoon at a time and taste after each addition to see what suits you. Blend the nutritional yeast into the sauce until smooth. Set aside whilst you finish the dish.
6. If you are using bacon pieces, fry these in a saucepan and set aside whilst you wait for the pasta to be finished.
7. Once your pasta is cooked, drain all of the water from the pasta, add the sauce to the pot with the pasta, and heat on a low heat until the sauce starts to gently bubble.
8. Once it starts to gently bubble, stir in your bacon pieces. Stir for another 2-3 minutes, so that the dish is steaming hot but making sure that the sauce does not start to boil, and then serve hot.
9. Add salt and pepper to taste and dig in!

This was a super quick and very easy dish to make, with the most time intensive part being the actual chopping and cooking of the onion and garlic. The sauce itself is very easy, and could easily be used in other dishes: My next experiment will be using this sauce to create a mushroom pasta dish instead, to really help bring out the earthy flavour of the mushrooms and compliment that nutty nutritional yeast flavour.

Let me know if you try this recipe and how it worked out for you! Have you added anything to the sauce that really helps bring out the flavours? Let me know in the comments so I can try it out myself!

T xxx