Creamy Roasted Garlic Alfredo
This one is properly special. We came up with this Creamy Roasted Garlic Alfredo when we were trying to prove that vegan pasta could be just as indulgent and satisfying as anything else out there, and honestly, it blew us away. Roasting the garlic low and slow turns it into something almost sweet and jammy, and when you blend it into the cauliflower sauce it becomes this incredibly silky, rich, deeply savoury thing that coats every strand of pasta perfectly. It takes a little more effort than a weeknight throw-together, but the payoff is absolutely worth it. Make this when you want to seriously impress someone, or just when you deserve a proper treat.
Before You Start
- Preheat oven to 200°C
- Large baking tray
- Tin foil square
- Saucepan
- Sieve
- Food processor
- Jug
- Large, high-sided saucepan
- Large pot for pasta
Ingredients
- 1 medium cauliflower
- 1 large bulb garlic
- 300ml oat milk
- 2 tsp nutritional yeast
- 4 sprigs of thyme
- 2 sprigs of rosemary
- 1 bay leaf
- olive oil for drizzling
- salt and pepper to taste
- 500g linguine
- 15g fresh parsley
- Squeeze lemon juice, to taste
Method
Prepare the cauliflower and garlic
- Cut the cauliflower florets off the stalk, spread them out over the baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and season with a little salt and pepper.
- Cut off the sprouting end of the garlic bulb, revealing the cloves inside.
- Put the bulb in the middle of the tin foil square, drizzle over a little olive oil, season with a little salt and pepper, wrap the bulb in the tin foil, pop the bulb on the tray with the cauliflower, put the tray in the oven and roast for 25 mins until the cauliflower is tender.
Infuse the oat milk
- Add the oat milk, nooch, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf to the saucepan and simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes.
- Take the pan off the stove and leave to cool.
Make the sauce
- Pour the infused milk into a jug through a sieve to catch the herbs.
- Remove the tray from the oven and leave to cool to room temperature.
- Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins into the food processor | Add the cauliflower to the processor and blitz into a purée.
- Keep the processor running and gradually pour the milk into the processor through the hole in the top.
- When the sauce is completely smooth, turn off the processor.
Prepare the pasta and serve
- Add the pasta to a large pot of boiling salted water and cook according to packet instructions (usually 9 minutes).
- Whilst the pasta is cooking, pour the sauce into a large, high sided saucepan and simmer gently over a medium heat.
- Pick the parsley leaves from the stalks.
- Taste the sauce and season to perfection with salt, pepper and nooch.
- Add a little (approx 50ml) pasta water to the sauce, drain the pasta, transfer to the pan and stir into the sauce.
- Transfer the Creamy Roasted Garlic Alfredo to serving bowls, garnish with pepper, parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice and serve immediately.
Tips & Variations
- Get the roast right: Don't rush the oven step. You want the cauliflower to have some real colour on it before you blend it, that caramelisation is where so much of the flavour comes from.
- Pasta water is your friend: Save a good mugful of starchy pasta water before you drain it. Adding it a splash at a time when you toss the sauce through the pasta is what makes everything glossy and clingy rather than thick and stodgy.
- Make it your own: Henry always stirs in a big handful of nutritional yeast at the end for extra cheesy depth, and Ian reckons a squeeze of lemon right before serving lifts the whole thing beautifully.
Why This Works
The trick here is that double roasting magic. Roasting the cauliflower gets it golden and slightly caramelised, and roasting the whole garlic bulb at the same time turns those raw, sharp cloves into something soft, mellow and almost buttery. When you blend the two together you get a sauce that tastes like it has cream and butter in it, but it's completely plant-based. Trust us on this one, it's a bit of a revelation.