This is the restaurant-worthy pasta sauce that you need to level-up your everyday pasta dinners. Truly rich and flavorful, Creamy Walnut Pasta Sauce is ready in just minutes! Made with walnuts, onions, garlic and fresh parsley, it provides a delicate flavour and the perfect texture to coat your favourite pasta. And can you believe it is dairy-free and vegan-friendly?! So easy to make, healthy and requires just a handful of ingredients; the next time you want to impress your guests, this is the dish for you!

What You’ll Need 

This is what you will need to make Creamy Walnut Pasta Sauce:

• Pasta of your choice - We love the long, thin pasta for this creamy recipe; however, short pasta of any shape will also work.
• Walnuts - The walnuts should be raw and soaked for a few hours, preferably overnight. 
• Onions and Garlic - provides all the flavour.
• Unsweetened plant-based milk - The type of plant-based milk doesn’t really matter hear. Whatever you have on hand, whether it’s soy, almond or oat, any one will work fine.
• Nutritional Yeast - Nutritional yeast is what makes this dish creamy without the addition of cheese. If you’ve never used nutritional yeast in pasta sauce before, you must try it! 
• Nutmeg - Provides a warm, nutty flavour that works perfectly with the walnuts.
• Fresh Parsley - provides colour and freshness to the final dish!

How To Make Creamy Walnut Pasta Sauce

This pasta dish is super easy to make and ready in no time! Here’s what you will need to do:

1. First, soak the walnuts, preferably over night. In a large bowl, cover the walnuts with water and let them soak for at least 7 hours. You can also add a pinch of two of sea salt.
2. Cook the pasta by bringing a large pot of water to a boil. Cook until al dente, reserve 1 cup of the cooking water, and then drain.
3. While the pasta is cooking, cook the onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat for about 3-5 minutes. 
4. Once the onion and garlic are cooked, place in a blender with the walnuts, plant-based milk, nutritional yeast and salt. Blend until smooth.
5. Add sauce to the pot with a pinch of nutmeg, heat over medium heat. Once warmed, season with additional salt, if needed and pepper to taste.
6. Add pasta and toss to coat. If the sauce is too thick, add some of the reserved cooking water until it reaches a better consistency.
7. When ready to serve, garnish with the chopped parsley, chopped walnuts, and vegan parmesan cheese as desired.
8. Enjoy!

Why Soak the Walnuts?

Soaking walnuts when cooking has a number of benefits, including improved taste, easier to blend and making them easier to absorb by the body. After as little as 20 minutes of soaking, you may notice that the nuts become smoother, and have a more palatable texture. This is because much of the dust, tannins and other residues that reside on the skins from the nuts are released into the water leaving behind a softer, more buttery nut. This is the perfect consistency for creamy sauces like this one!

Pasta Sauce Variations

There is no wrong way to make pasta sauce and there are many variations that you can experiment with. Here are a few that we have in mind:

• Add a handful of spinach to the blender to make a creamy spinach sauce. 
• Mix with some tomato sauce to create a creamy rose. 
• Cook a few chopped grape tomatoes in olive oil and top your pasta for a touch of colour and sweetness.