This recipe is straight from Laura Lea Goldberg’s healthy and delicious blog, LL Balanced and part of our SB Challenge “Back to the Table” where we feature seven recipes each Sunday, for three weeks, and challenge our readers to gather around a home-cooked meal each night! Her cookbook is wildly popular and available right here for $20.40. With a whopping 380+ reviews and average five-star rating, this is a cookbook you’ll love using time and again. We highly recommend buying it as well as subscribing to LL Balanced for recipes that you’ll enjoy.
For this recipe, Laura Lea says, “Few things satisfy more than a big bowl of creamy noodles, amiright? It’s up there with finally flossing out that piece of apple skin, scratching that ill-located itch and taking off heels after a long night of standing. Pure gratuitous satisfaction!
“Mushrooms do an incredible job of mimicking the texture and heartiness of meat, so they’re an ideal addition to plant-based pasta dishes. Their earthiness reflects the grounding nature of winter, and it feels wonderfully appropriate to enjoy them in spades right now. You might be wondering what makes this particular pasta dish ‘high-protein,’ and the secret is Eat Banza chickpea noodles or Tolerant Foods lentil noodles. I discovered these through my #girlboss friend, Courtney from Realfoodology, and I couldn’t believe that they’re made from legumes! I was even more ecstatic when I found them on Thrive Market for a much more affordable price than on Amazon. So I buy them in bulk now, in all shape varieties, and I absolutely adore how filling they are: each serving has twice the protein, four times the fiber and half the net carbs of traditional wheat flour. You can absolutely make this recipe with any noodles you have lying around, or with zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash, but I’m on a serious Eat Banza and Tolerant Foods kick, and I recommend giving them a try!
“Whatever noodles you use, this pasta is uber creamy, squishy-noise-in-the-best-way, stick-to-your-ribs-goodness, and it has already become a staple in our house! It’s very versatile, so you could toss in cooked sausage, bacon, chicken, roasted broccoli, green peas … you get the gist.”
If you make this dish, please tag Laura Lea on Instagram at @lauraleabalanced, StyleBlueprint at @styleblueprint, and use the hashtags #sbchallenge #mySBplate. We want to cheer you on!
You can see the original post featuring this recipe on LL Balanced here.
SB note: for Banza pasta, use this link to find a location near you that sells this brand. For example, we were pleasantly surprised to find it in the healthy foods section at Kroger!
Recipe: High Protein Creamy Mushroom Alfredo
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup raw cashews
- 8 ounces pasta of choice I like spaghetti noodles
- 8 ounces sliced mushrooms button or baby bella
- 1/2 medium yellow onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons low-sodium Tamari sub soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon molasses sub maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon dark balsamic vinegar
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt plus more to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken stock sub vegetable stock
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast plus more to taste
Instructions
PREP
- Add cashews to a bowl with hot tap water (not boiling) and allow to soak for 1 hour.
- While cashews are soaking, cook pasta slightly al dente according to package directions (1-2 minutes less than recommended time).
- Wipe mushrooms clean with a damp towel and set aside. Chop onion into 1/4 inch pieces, approximately 1 cup, and set aside. Minced garlic cloves and set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together tamari, molasses, balsamic, dijon, salt and pepper. Set aside.
COOK
- Heat a large skillet to medium and add olive oil. When oil moves easily around the pan, add mushrooms and onions. Cook, stirring, until mushrooms have significantly reduced in size and any extra liquid has evaporated approximately 10 minutes.
- Turn heat to low and add garlic, as well as tamari mixture. Cook, stirring, until garlic is softened and fragrant, approximately 1 minute. Add 1 cup chicken stock and allow mixture to simmer.
- While mixture is simmering, add drained cashews to a blender, along with remaining 1/2 cup stock and nutritional yeast. Puree until smooth.
- Add cashew puree to pan and stir to combine. Simmer mixture until it has reduced in size by approximately 1/3. It is ready when you scrape a spoon through it and the liquid doesn't run back together.
- Add noodles and cook until warmed through, 2-3 minutes. Taste for more taste, pepper and/or nutritional yeast. Serve immediately.
Nutrition
See six more recipes, that are all part of our week-one SB healthy dinner challenge, below where it says “More Articles You’ll Love.”
