This recipe is a Creamy Tofu Pasta Sauce, with Garlic, Zucchini, Spinach & Tomato. It is a fast, easy vegan dairy-free cream sauce that is high protein, healthy, and low fat because, like all my recipes, it is delicious without oil.
This fast tofu pasta sauce dinner only takes 30 minutes to make.
Use soft silken tofu to make a creamy, tomato and zucchini pasta sauce for dinner that is oil free and nut free.
Jump to RecipeIf you like garlic, tomatoes and creamy sauces you will like this simple pasta dish. It is an easy and quick vegan recipe for beginners and experienced cooks alike.
This tofu pasta sauce has a flavour that is fantastic, and works with vegetables other than zucchini too.
Add spinach in the last step for a true vegan experience. Don’t forget the lemon!
Is Traditional White Cream Sauce Fattening?
Did you know? Making a tofu pasta cream sauce from 600 g silken tofu instead of the equal 2 1/2 cups dairy Half & Half cream (considered low-fat cream) reduces calories from 787.5 to 270 calories.
Using soft tofu in your pasta sauce instead of half and half cream reduces fat from 69.5 grams to 15 grams.
And, if you made a white sauce with flour, skim milk and 4 Tbsp of butter you are getting even more fat – 2.5 cups of that sauce would be 905 calories and 65 g of fat.
So, stick with us healthy vegans here, and choose to keep your blood flowing to your brain without blockages.
Choose 15 grams of fat in this low fat, healthy tofu pasta sauce recipe without oil, vs. 65 grams of fat with traditional pasta sauces.
So, YES, dairy white sauce is fattening.
Plus, tofu is cholesterol free, dairy is full of cholesterol.
You can make this fast dinner recipe in the time it takes you to boil the pasta.
Pre-chop your vegetables and add them to a large pot. Add the tomato paste and stir.
Blend the silken tofu and once creamy, add it to the vegetables.
New to using tofu? Read all about silken tofu in my All About Tofu post.
Stir the tofu pasta cream sauce until completely combined.
Add spinach and stir to melt it into the pasta just before serving.
You don’t need to cook the spinach longer than a few minutes.
Voila!
While this vegan tofu pasta sauce recipe has no oil and is low-fat it will fill you up quite quickly. It has a good amount of protein, and is full of nutrition that you need to be healthy.
It is a creamy, light, and delicious, dairy-free tofu pasta sauce dish, that is very satisfying, and nutritious, definitely a great vegan meal. 🙂
Creamy Tofu Pasta Sauce with Garlic, Zucchini, Spinach & Tomato
Instructions and Ingredients
- 13.5 ounces whole wheat penne pasta 375 g whole grain, or other short cut pasta
- 8 zucchini small, cubed - a bagful from Costco
- 5 garlic cloves - medium, minced
- 1 teaspoon salt 5 mL
- 1 red pepper sliced
- 1/2 jalapeno pepper diced, or 1 tsp black pepper
- 4 tablespoons tomato paste 60 mL or 1 small can
- 28 ounces can diced tomatoes 796 mL large can, with juice
- 22 ounces silken tofu soft, 2 packages, amazon.com
- 6 cups baby spinach 180 g fresh and packed, 1 bag
- 1 lemon 2 Tbsp juice or more, freshly squeezed
Suggested Toppings
- pinenuts
- vegan parmesan cheese see my recipe
- fresh ground herbed salt available from Epicure
- crushed red pepper flakes instead of jalapeño
- fresh ground black pepper instead of jalapeño
Links for Canada
Assemble Ingredients
- Assemble your ingredients, open cans so you can add ingredients easily, this dish comes together very quickly.
Boil Pasta
- Put on a medium pot of water to a boil for the pasta. Cook the pasta according to package directions while you make the veggies and sauce.
Prepare Vegetables
- Cube the zucchini. Mince the garlic cloves.
- Heat a large pot to medium heat, add the cubed zucchini, garlic, and salt, and stir. Moisture will come out of the zucchini - it shouldn't burn. If it gets dry add water a tablespoon at a time to moisten.
- Slice the red pepper, and dice the jalapeño, if using. Remove the seeds if you don’t like things too spicy!
- Once the zucchini has slightly softened, add the peppers. Stir for 2 minutes.
- Add the tomato paste and stir to coat the vegetables. Your pasta should be almost done.
- Stir in the undrained diced tomatoes.
Blend Tofu
- Blend the silken (soft) tofu in a small blender until it looks like sour cream, and stir into the vegetables.
Combine and Add Spinach
- Drain the pasta and add the hot pasta to the vegetables and sauce.Taste for salt, add more if required.
- Once bubbling, turn off heat, stir in spinach leaves just so they wilt, and serve.
Squeeze liberal amounts of fresh lemon juice on each serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Inspired by: http://funnyloveblog.com/2013/02/18/pasta-with-zucchini-and-tomato-cream-sauce/
Testing recipe rating and comments!
Oh my god, this is FANTASTIC! I used roma(?) tomatoes that I wanted to find a use for and put those in at the beginning with the garlic as well as the bell pepper and onion that I used instead of zucchini because, again, I had them already. The tomatoes simmered down fine but I needed to add a little water here and there. I used chili pepper flakes instead of jalapeno. Otherwise, everything was the same except I only used about a third of each ingredient and it worked beautifully. I want to make this all the time!! Thank you so much.
Hmm… I made this again and it’s not nearly as good :/ I used whole wheat pasta this time, which, to be fair, just doesn’t taste as good as its unhealthy counterpart 🙂 I also used canned diced tomatoes whereas last time I used fresh roma tomatoes. I think that’s probably the main reason for such a big change in taste. The texture of the sauce is weird… the blended tofu doesn’t seem to be mixing in well, which could also be a result of using canned tomatoes? Although the tofu has been opened for 3-4 days. That could be it! Lastly, I didn’t use onion this time, and obvious onion adds a lot of flavor to any dish. I used zucchini this time but didn’t last time. I don’t think that’s the problem, but I’m also not a huge zucchini fan… so maybe I should just go back to everything I did before! Sorry if anyone is reading this. I am writing these notes so I can read them next time 🙂
I made this but also added onions, as I felt it needed a little something more for the flavor profile. I debated cutting down the recipe by 1/2 because 8 servings is a lot, but had company coming and wanted to have leftovers. Needless to say, while the meal itself was good, I was disappointed by the left-overs. the pasta absorbed the tofu so there was no longer a creamy component, which made the pasta itself mushy. If I were to make this again, I would cut it in half and cook the pasta less before adding it to the mix.