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Vegan mushrooms pasta is a quick and creamy pasta recipe, that you can make with most mushroom varieties and that will surprise you for its simplicity and taste. This dish represents the essence of Italian cooking. Simple yet delicious!
This is a perfect recipe for everyday dinners since you can make it in just about 15 minutes. But because it's so tasty you can also make it when you have people over. They are going to love it!
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Introduction to mushroom pasta
Our vegan mushroom pasta can be easily made with most mushroom varieties that are available in your local grocery store. In this recipe, we use easy to find white mushrooms, combined with portobello mushrooms.
You can use whatever mushrooms you have at hand. But regardless of the type of mushroom you choose, my personal recommendation to give this recipe a flavor boost is to add a few dried porcini mushrooms.
In Italian cooking, dried porcini are used in many preparations, but mostly in risottos and pastas. While it is difficult to find fresh porcini outside of Italy, dried porcini are basically available everywhere these days.
I love to add dried porcini mushrooms, and their soaking water, because they give an incredible mushroom taste to the other mushrooms, that otherwise would be quite tasteless.
Regarding the pasta type, we recommend a long shape, such as spaghetti, linguine, bavette, or, like in the pictures you see here, an egg-free tagliatelle made with semolina flour. So delicious!
Ingredients & Substitutions
Ours is a mushroom pasta without cream, so let's see below how we make it creamy.
- Pasta: you can use any pasta type for this recipe, but we recommend a long shaped pasta like spaghetti, linguine, bavette, and egg-free tagliatelle.
- Mushrooms: we use white mushrooms, portobello mushroom, and dried porcini mushrooms for a flavour boost. You can replace the fresh mushrooms with any mushrooms type that you find in your supermarket, for example with cremini or chanterelle.
- Tomatoes: we use cherry tomatoes. You can replace them with plum tomatoes or date tomatoes.
- Fresh parsley: it goes so well with mushrooms. Try not to replace this one.
- Dry white wine: to add acidity to the meal. It gives it an incredible flavour boost. Try not to replace it. If you don't want to use wine, then go for some vegetable stock.
- Salt: for the sauce and for the pasta water.
- Butter: we add some vegan butter (or vegetable margarine) to add that last touch of creaminess. You can replace this with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
- Pasta cooking water: remember to save a cup before you drain your pasta. We add some to the sauce. Pasta cooking water contains starch, which will help us make the sauce creamy.
How to make vegan mushroom pasta
Make the mushrooms sauce
As a first step, take the dried porcini mushrooms and soak them in lukewarm water.
Dried mushrooms need to be rehydrated before use. Do not throw away the soaking water because it contains a lot of mushroom flavor and we use it later on.
Also, chop the other mushrooms, quite chunkily as they'll lose a lot of their volume, and add them to the pan.
TIP: I like to cut the portobello in thick slices, almost 1 cm thick (⅓ of an inch).
Also, put the water to cook the pasta to boil, in a large pot.
To a nonstick pan, add olive oil, minced garlic, and chili flakes. Gently fry on low heat for ½ a minute. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn.
We use quite a lot of garlic in this recipe because we love it with the mushrooms. Feel free to reduce the quantity if ours is too much for you.
TIP: use a garlic masher if you don't want to mince the garlic with a knife.
Add the chopped mushroom and the soaked and squeezed porcini mushrooms and add them to the pan too. Save their water for later. Stir well to mix the mushrooms with the garlic and chili oil.
Now add the white wine to the pan and stir. When the wine is evaporated, add the soaking water of the porcini to the pan, but pass it through a sieve first, if you see that it has sand/dirt in it.
Cook the mushrooms on medium heat till most of the liquid has evaporated and the pan is almost dry.
TIP: when cooking mushrooms, never drain away their cooking water. That's where their flavor is. The best is to let the water evaporate so that the flavor sticks to the mushrooms.
When most of the cooking water is gone, add finely chopped parsley and cherry tomatoes cut in half.
Cook for another minute or two then turn the heat off. The cherry tomatoes should not be completely mushy, so don't overcook them at this stage. In the meantime cook the pasta.
Cook the pasta
When the sauce is almost ready, cook your pasta in heavily salted boiling water.
When the pasta is very al dente, that is 2 to 3 minutes undercooked, drain it and add it to the pan with the mushrooms.
Save the pasta cooking water, and add ½ cup of it to the pan with the sauce and the pasta.
Now finish cooking the pasta in the pan, moving it around occasionally, and coating it in the sauce. Cook the pasta till al dente. Add more pasta water if necessary.
When the pasta is cooked al dente, turn the heat off, and add the vegan butter. Mix gently till the butter has melted. The vegan mushroom pasta is ready to be served.
Tips
Dried porcini: supermarket mushrooms don't taste like much these days, so adding dried porcini is a quick trick to add loads of mushroom flavor to your vegan mushroom pasta.
Also add their soaking water, after filtering it with a sieve as it might have some sand residue.
Undercook the pasta: if you follow our blog, you know we like to undercook the pasta, about 2 o 3 minutes less than it says on the package, then we finish cooking it in the pan with the sauce.
This technique, widely popular in Italy, helps to make the pasta creamier because this way it releases a lot of its starch directly in the pan with the sauce.
Add pasta cooking water: this also helps to make the pasta more creamy, as pasta cooking water contains the starch leaked out from the pasta. Starch adds creaminess to the dish.
White wine: in my opinion should be always there with mushroom dishes. It adds acidity, and acidity is a massive flavor booster.
Variations
Mushroom pasta with Chanterelle
Chanterelle is a delicious mushroom, perfect for this type of preparation. It is more expensive than regular mushrooms, so probably is not for everyday cooking.
But if you have a chance to try it, follow the exact same instructions for this vegan mushroom pasta.
Pasta with mushroom and spinach
Another delicious variation, substitute spinach for the tomatoes. All you need to do is to follow our recipe, then instead of adding the tomatoes, add the spinach to the pan with the mushroom. Cook the spinach for 3 minutes, then add in the pasta.
Storage
Store leftovers in the refrigerator in an airtight container up to the next day. Warm up the pasta on a pan, with some oil or water. Not suitable for freezing.
Dinner ideas
Did you know that we develop our recipes to go together for a complete dinner meal plan? Serve this vegan mushroom pasta as a main, with:
Oven roasted broccoli with lemon chili garlic dressing
Recipe
Vegan mushroom pasta
Ingredients
- 250 grams (7 oz) pasta (spaghetti, egg-free tagliatelle, linguine, etc)
- 500 grams (18 oz) mushrooms (mix portobello, white, cremini, or other)
- 150 grams (5 oz) cherry tomatoes
- 15 grams (0.5 oz) dried porcini mushrooms
- ½ cup white wine (or vegetable broth)
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic
- 0.5 teaspoon chili flakes
- 1 handful parsley
- salt (to taste)
- 2 tablespoon vegan butter (or margarine)
Instructions
- Soak the dried porcini in lukewarm water. Also, put the water to cook the pasta to boil.Chop the mushrooms, quite chunkily as they'll lose a lot of their volume, and set aside.TIP: I like to cut the portobello in thick slices, almost 1 cm thick (⅓ of an inch).
- To a nonstick pan, add olive oil, minced garlic, and chili flakes. Gently fry on low heat for ½ a minute then add the chopped mushrooms.Squeeze the soaked porcini mushrooms and add them to the pan too. Save their water for later. Stir well to mix the mushrooms with the garlic and chili oil.Make sure the garlic doesn't burn. If it starts to burn add a little tap water to lower the temperature of the pan.
- Add the white wine to the pan and stir. When the wine is evaporated, add the soaking water of the porcini to the pan, but pass it through a sieve first, if you see that it has sand/dirt in it.Cook the mushrooms on medium heat till most of the liquid has evaporated and the pan is almost dry.
- Add finely chopped parsley and cherry tomatoes cut in half. Cook for another minute or two then turn the heat off.
- Cook your pasta in heavily salted boiling water. When the pasta is very al dente, that is 2 to 3 minutes undercooked, drain it and add it to the pan with the mushrooms.Save the pasta cooking water, and add ½ cup of it to the pan with the sauce and the pasta.
- Finish cooking the pasta in the pan, moving it around occasionally, and coating it in the sauce. Cook the pasta till al dente. Add more pasta water if necessary.When the pasta is cooked al dente, turn the heat off, and add the vegan butter. Mix gently till the butter has melted. The vegan mushroom pasta is ready to be served.
Full video on youtube @theplantbasedschool
Nutritional Values
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Did you try this recipe at home? Let us know in the comments below, or take a picture and tag us on Instagram @italiaplantbased.
Buon appetito!
Nico
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