There is simply nothing that says comfort food better than pasta. Even in these warm summer months I find myself craving a dish of pasta every now and then, and of course once September hits it’s game on! We grew up having mushrooms in nearly every second dish. It’s funny how mushrooms can be so polarizing, either you love them or you hate them.
I’m bound and determined to have a family of mushroom lovers…let the training begin!
Once upon a time we thought that mushrooms had zero nutrition, but were ‘we’ ever wrong! As a dietitian I preach of the importance of jamming your diet full of colourful fruits and vegetables, but this message diminishes the value of some of the less colourful ones such as mushrooms (cauliflower is another that comes to mind). Here’s the lowdown on how nutritious mushrooms really are!
Mushrooms are:
- the only vegan non-fortified source of vitamin D
- a source of potassium, copper, iron, phosphorus and selenium
- provide antioxidants to help protect against the damaging effects of free radicals in the body
- rich in B vitamins to help us get energy from food and make red blood cells
- contain a fibre called beta-glucans that helps with insulin resistance and cholesterol levels
If that isn’t enough to turn haters into mushroom lovers I don’t know what is!
I paired this dish with kale to add more nutrition and colour, and made a rich creamy (but super healthy) vegan sauce using Almond Breeze unsweetened original beverage and nutritional yeast to give it a perfect parmesan-like flavour and add a hit of vitamin B12 that every vegan needs! Topped with crunchy pine nuts, this has turned into one of my favourite dishes! The Almond Breeze was the PERFECT base for my sauce, it is really neutral with a hint of almonds that compliments the earthiness of the dish (AND it’s fortified with important nutrients like calcium). Even Charlie (my 5 year old son) loved it…and judging from the picture below, Max (my 1 year old) was pretty keen too – love that chubby little hand!
Creamy Garlicky Kale & Mushroom Pasta
Ingredients
- 250 grams dry pasta gemelli, rotini or something similar
- 3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic crushed
- 4 cup sliced white or brown mushrooms 9 oz
- 4 cup lightly packed chopped kale*
- 1 ½ cup + 1/3 c. Almond Breeze unsweetened original beverage
- 2 Tbps. flour
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- salt and pepper to taste
- toasted pine nuts or parmesan cheese
Instructions
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Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Once at a rolling boil, add the pasta and stir. Cook until al dente and drain the pasta, reserving the pasta water.
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Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant and transparent, about 1 minute.
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Turn the heat to medium and add the mushrooms: sauté until they have cooked down, approximately 4-5 minutes. Add the kale and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes, until the kale is wilted.
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Place the flour in a cup and slowly add the 1/3 cup of Almond Breeze, making a paste to begin with by stirring a small amount of the Almond Breeze with a spoon into the flour, adding the remainder of the 1/3 cup once the paste is formed.
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Add 1 ½ c. of the Almond Breeze, the nutritional yeast and the above flour mixture to the mushrooms and kale, stirring well, and continue cooking while stirring until the sauce has thickened, about 2-4 minutes. Add the salt and pepper to taste.
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Add the cooked pasta to the sauce and stir. If the sauce is too thick once the pasta has been added (it can thicken as it sits), add some of the hot pasta water to the dish to get the consistency that you like.
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Serve with toasted pine nuts or parmesan cheese on top.
This post was sponsored by Almond Breeze, all opinions are my own
Hi Tori,
I made this last night for my guests and it was a hit. We agreed that we felt a little weird eating pasta in the summer, but I also had a craving. It was a tasty dish loaded with kale and mushrooms. I added in some onion as well when I was cooking up the garlic! SO tasty:)
Ashley
Hey Ashley! I’m happy you loved it…even in the heat of the summer! Good tip about the onion! Have a great week and thanks for the feedback! Tori
Really delicious dinner tonight! I substituted Parmesan cheese for the nutritional yeast and topped it with roasted chicken – obviously not vegan anymore 😂. Thanks for the awesome recipe. My whole family gobbled it up.
That’s awesome thanks Robyn! Hey, I’m glad you made some tweaks to make it work better for your family!
I made this for my family, loved the lighter and healthier take on a cream sauce, added chicken for my teenage son, he had no idea it was almond milk. So yummy! This will be a go to comfort food, pasta dish.
Thank you 🙂
Fabulous thank you Vicky for letting me know! So happy you loved it!
Made this last night. It was a big hit. I will be making this again!
Can’t wait for the cookbook. 🙂
Thank you for letting me know Marta that’s awesome!
Enjoy your Instagram account. Would love to follow your blog.
Recipes look wonderful. Thank you.
Thank you Beverly! If you subscribe at the top right (on desktop) or the very bottom (on mobile) you can choose to get all of the posts or just the bi-weekly roundups.
Yummy! I made this tonight for dinner with what I had in the fridge so I subbed kale for spinach and soy milk for almond- it was delish! Thanks for the recipe! I also added a few drops of truffle oil at the end which was nice! If someone served it to me I wouldn’t have known there wasn’t dairy in it!
so glad you liked it Meaghan! Love the idea of adding truffle oil I bet it was delicious!