Dairy free options are sometimes difficult to find when you have additional foods you need to avoid. For example, we love doing spaghetti meals, but since Nolan is unable to tolerate tomatoes, we needed to find a replacement. Since he is also diary free, I have been working to perfect an Alfredo sauce. This became a little more complicated when we also had to remove tree nuts, since a few good recipes I found used cashews to make a dairy free Alfredo. So this is how my recipe was born. I found some inspiration to start creating, then worked to tweak the recipe until I got the flavour and consistency I was hoping for.
This recipe isn’t difficult, but requires a few more steps than opening a jar of spaghetti sauce, so I decided to create the recipe as a larger batch. This way you will have leftovers you can freeze for an easy meal at another time. I found my original size didn’t double the same way other recipes did. So I had to again change a few proportions to get the recipe right for a larger batch.
To help make prep and cook time easier, I used frozen cauliflower. (Fresh can be used as well, just replace one 500g bag of frozen with 1 medium sized head of cauliflower). If your cauliflower is a little bigger than what you might find in the frozen bag, you will just need a little more milk when blending to get your ideal consistency.
Flavour for dairy free Alfredo sauce has been my greatest challenge. I have been very happy with the combination of nutritional yeast and miso paste for the cheesy flavour and the added spices for a little extra zing.
Nutritional yeast is a great way to add that cheesy flavour to your dish, and get some added B vitamins. It is not an active yeast, so it’s safe to consume for everyone. When buying nutritional yeast, it is always most cost effective to buy it in bulk. Since it’s very light, you can get a really big amount for not so much. I have found that the more you use, the more rich flavour you get.
Miso paste brings a great ‘aged’ flavour that tends to be missing from diary free cheeses. My favourite to use for something like this is a white miso. It is the lightest in flavour. If you have issues with soy based products, you can find miso that is made with brown rice and chickpea (company that carries it).
For the non-dairy milk, I used an unsweetened unflavoured coconut milk, but you could use any option, as long as it’s unsweetened and unflavoured, so almond milk, soy milk, or oat milk could work. If you find your sauce is too thick when blending, slowly add a little extra milk until you reach your preferred consistency.
Minced garlic is something I always have on hand. We have a little chopper that allows us to pre-mince our own garlic and then we store it in a glass container with some water and citric acid. That way I’m only mincing garlic every 2 weeks, and each time I need some, it’s just a spoon’s scoop away.
If you don’t have onion powder around the house, you could dice up half a small onion and throw it in with your garlic and ghee/avocado oil to sauté. This way you will get that wonderful onion flavour throughout your sauce.
I did leave the option to use either ghee or avocado oil for this recipe. Those allergic to dairy, should stick to avocado oil, but those who are just sensitive to dairy might find they like to use ghee. We are still able to tolerate butter with our sensitivities, you may be able to as well, but that will be a personal choice.
I prefer to turn this sauce into a full meal, so after I have finished making the base sauce, I will cook up some ground turkey, chicken or beef (about ½ a pound). Or, add in any leftover meat I may have in the fridge. I also add extra veggies (you can always add veggies to a meal!), and so far my favourites to add to the Alfredo are mushrooms, green beans, asparagus, and zucchini. Normally I will just add 2 veggies to the sauce, and the combo changes, but mushrooms have become one of our staple added veggies. I add the meat and veggies into the completed sauce, cook until veggies are soft, and then serve over cooked noodles.
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