baked spinach and pasta with a creamy roasted garlic sauce

i started playing around the silken tofu a while ago.  it works well as an egg replacer in baked goods or egg dishes.  but it also makes a thick, creamy sauce when blended, like in my recipe for  vegan sour cream.

recently, i’ve been brainstorming ways to turn tofu into a creamy pasta sauce and the result was surprisingly simple.  it just takes a little roasted garlic, some olive oil and salt!  the rich, sweet flavor of the roasted garlic gives the sauce all the flavor it needs and this simple sauce could be used in any dish you’d like!

baked spinach and pasta with a creamy roasted garlic sauce
1 bag of pasta (any kind you’d like; 14 oz)
1 bunch of spinach
1 block of silken tofu (12 oz)
2 heads of garlic
1/4 c of oil (olive or canola work great)
1 tsp salt
flax meal (optional)
bread crumbs (optional)

first off you must bake the garlic as this takes much longer than everything else.  peal all of the cloves of the 2 heads of garlic and remove their tough bottom tip.

bake them at 400F for 30 minutes loosely wrapped in aluminum foil, they should be slightly softened, light golden in color and much sweeter and less pungent than raw garlic.

while that’s roasting you can prep everything else.  boil your pasta until soft, then strain.

wash the spinach well and remove the bottoms of the stems.  i kept cut my leaves pretty coarsely  because they will shrink a bit when baked, and i like the long stringy pieces of spinach, but you can chop them smaller if you’d like.

the last thing to prep is optional.  i like to mix even parts of flax meal and bread crumbs to sprinkle over any baked pasta dish i make.  it gives it a nice hardy crunch on top.  if you don’t want to buy them, you can make bread crumbs or flax meal at home just by pulsing stale bread or flax seeds in the blender.

once the garlic is all done roasting, throw it in a blender along with the block of tofu, oil and salt.  blend and you’ve got the simplest, tastiest, creamiest sauce that’s perfect for any pasta dish or even with cooked vegetables.

mix the pasta, spinach and garlic sauce all together in a large bowl or pan.

then spoon out portions into small dishes for individual servings, or you can put it all in a casserole dish and bake it all together.  sprinkle with the flax meal/bread crumbs before popping it in the oven at 350F for about 15 minutes, or until the top is beginning to look crunchy and baked.

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11 Comments

  1. Posted March 25, 2009 at 12:59 pm | Permalink

    This dish looks delectable. The roasted garlic sauce sounds so amazing and simple, definitely something I’ll be trying soon!

  2. Okriina
    Posted March 26, 2009 at 12:22 am | Permalink

    I think roasten garlic works like magic in many things and it is not ‘garlic’ at all. This looks delicious and really nice photos!

  3. Posted March 26, 2009 at 1:14 am | Permalink

    Ahhh this looks amazing! I am going to try it out on Saturday night when the boy is out, but if it’s good (I’m sure it will be!) I’ll try it out on him, too, and not tell him about the tofu content. Thanks for this great idea!

  4. Kimmie
    Posted April 1, 2009 at 6:52 pm | Permalink

    DELICIOUS! You would have never guessed that it was made of tofu! Finally indulgence!

  5. Posted April 9, 2009 at 1:09 am | Permalink

    Oh my my, that looks SO good & I’m not even a pasta girl.

  6. Trustngod
    Posted May 12, 2009 at 4:33 pm | Permalink

    This was amazing! It was so easy to make and tasted so decadent! Can’t wait to make it again. I had never used boxed silken tofu before. Now I’m hooked!

  7. Heather
    Posted July 9, 2009 at 5:49 pm | Permalink

    I just had some for dinner and it is very creamy and very yummy. I can’t wait to make it for my roommates and trick them into thinking its like mac and cheese!

  8. Posted July 10, 2009 at 9:45 am | Permalink

    yah, it’s very convincing! i’ve even found that a scoop of vegannaise in place of some of the oil makes it even creamier when baked, so it doesn’t dry up as much.

    and keep your eyes out, because just last night i tricked some carnivores into thinking i’d made pizza with cheese when it was really just a very similar tofu sauce! i’ve got to share that recipe.

  9. Chrissy
    Posted September 3, 2009 at 5:16 pm | Permalink

    I just finished making this! I’m enjoying this right now….yum, I’m so pleased that I can finally have a creamy pasta dish without out the worry of all the bad stuff .

    Thanks for the recipe!

  10. Kira Williams
    Posted October 25, 2009 at 8:42 pm | Permalink

    This looks so decadent and amazing! If you cannot have soy, what can be used to substitute for the silken tofu? I’d love to try it

  11. Posted October 26, 2009 at 1:03 pm | Permalink

    hmm, good question. to be honest i don’t think there is anything that will work just like the tofu and be as convenient to just pop in the blender, but you could make up a sort of gravy/roux/cream sauce by sauteing some minced garlic and/or onions in some olive oil, slowly working in a little flour until it’s thick, then add in rice milk/nut milk/any other milk alternative, and cook down on low heat until it’s a creamy sauce. of course then let cool a little before blending with the roasted garlic and salt (no need to add more oil).

    but keep in mind i’m just guessing, i’ve never made it that way before so i don’t know how it would bake but let me know if you find success!

2 Trackbacks

  1. [...] Comment on baked spinach and pasta with a creamy roasted garlic sauce by Trustngod This post was written by SuperFoodie on June 26, 2009 Posted Under: Superfood Talk Comment on baked spinach and pasta with a creamy roasted garlic sauce by Trustngod [...]

  2. By funky town « zoe & the beatles on May 25, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    [...] right, moving on. the sauce (originally from sweet beet and green): 1 head of garlic about half a block of silken tofu 1/4 cup olive oil [...]

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