Cauliflower Jalapeño Spiced Alfredo---light and guilt-free
This is one of my new favorites! This cauliflower based cream sauce is delicious! Not only is it creamy and comforting, it's light and totally guilt-free. The tender cauliflower is super versatile; had I not made it myself, I would never have guess that this sauce has no heavy cream in it. It leaves you feeling light and satisfied, rather then heavy and bloated :).
Although, I chose to use some dairy in the sauce, it can easily be made vegan by replacing the butter with Earth Balance and the parmesan with nutritional yeast. I was also in the mood for a little spice, more specifically for fresh jalapeño, so I added one chili to the sauce and it added the perfect amount of zest that I was looking for.My sauce turned out a little thicker than I wanted, so I added additional pasta/bean water to it until I got the consistency I wanted---so make sure you save some of that water in case you want to thin it out. I really can't say enough how great this recipe is! It's a vegetable packed meal that will leave you and your Valentine comforted and satisfied; mentally and physically :)!Happy Valentine's Everyone!xo,Kajal
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth (depends on your desired consistency)
- 1 1/2 pounds cauliflower, cored and cut into 1/2 in florets
- 3 tablespoons finely grated parmesan
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon italian spice blend
- 1 jalapeño, de-stemmed, de-seeded and diced into small pieces
- 2 tablespoon butter, divided
- 1 tomato, diced finely
- 1 lb. rice pasta (I used rigatoni)
- 1 lb. fresh green beans (ideally thin beans), washed and
- In a medium pot bring milk and broth to a simmer.
- Add cauliflower and cook covered for about 15 minutes, or until tender.
- Take pot off stove and add parmesan, salt, pepper, italian seasoning, diced jalapeño and 1 tablespoon butter. Then using an immersion blender, blend until smooth and creamy.
- In a large pot of salted and oiled boiling water, cook pasta according to package instructions---when straining pasta, reserve the hot pasta water into another medium size pot.
- Place the medium pot of hot water back on the stove and add green beans to that water. Cook beans for 7-8 minutes or until tender.
- While beans are cooking, place pasta back into the large pot it was boiled in and the cream sauce to the pasta. Stir gently and then fold in the tomatoes. Add hot water from the pot of boiling beans if the sauce needs to be thinned out a little so that it coats the pasta.
- Serve beans on top of pasta and sprinkle with a little parmesan.
