This creamy and flavourful pasta dish is a great 20 minute meal for when you’re short on time and fresh ingredients. In it I utilise pantry staples like pasta, sunflower seeds and jarred bell peppers. This makes it both cheaper and quicker than if you were to use fresh bell pepper. Usually I also use cashews to make this kind of vegan creamy pasta sauce but sunflower seeds, which is a the more affordable option, work really well here. The flavour of the seeds become a subtle background flavour to the big and bold roasted bell peppers and the seasonings.

Grab your linguine, or spaghetti, or any other pasta shape you enjoy and start cooking friends – you won’t regret it!

Malin x

Creamy Bell Pepper and Sunflower Seed Linguine

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

Bread crumb topping:

1 tbsp vegan butter or olive oil

1 garlic clove

0,5 tsp chili flakes

0,75 cup fresh bread crumbs, gluten free if required

Salt and black pepper, to taste

Bell pepper sauce:

0,75 sunflower seeds

3 roasted bell peppers from a jar

1,5 tbsp nutritional yeast

1,5 tsp vegetable stock powder, or 1 vegetable stock cube

1 tsp onion powder

0,5 tsp garlic powder

0,3 – 0,5 cup unsweetened soy milk

Serve with:

4 servings of linguine (or spaghetti), gluten free if required

METHOD:

Cook your pasta according to package instructions. Make sure to save some starchy, salted cooking water when draining the pasta as this will be used to thin the sauce later.

Add the sunflower seeds for the pasta sauce into a bowl and cover it with hot water. Allow to soak and soften for roughly 15 minutes before finishing the sauce.

Melt the vegan butter in a skillet over medium heat. In the meantime peel the garlic clove and once the butter is melted and gently bubbling us a garlic press to press it into it. Also add the chili flakes and give it all a good stir around. Cook for about 1 minute and then add the bread crumbs*.

Season the crumbs with salt and black pepper to taste and toast them until golden. This usually take about 3-5 minutes. Make sure to stir often for an even result and then transfer to a plate or bowl and set aside.

Once the time is up for the sunflower seed soak drain and rinse them under cold water. Add them to a high speed blender along with all of the other ingredients for the sauce, starting with 0,3 cup soy milk. Blitz on high until smooth and if you find it is a little thick or not blending well add the remaining soy milk and blend again.

Once the pasta is drained add it back into its cooking pot and pour the sauce over it. Mix to coat the pasta and if needed thin the sauce with some of the pasta cooking water until you reach a nicely coated and creamy result.

Serve immeadiately topped with the toasted bread crumbs and if you wish some extra chili flakes.

*I use stale bread to make fresh bread crumbs by simply tearing it into smaller pieces,. adding it to a blender or food processor and pulsing until I reach a crumb. 

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