I’ve been enviously reading online reports from this weekend’s Vida Vegan Con in Portland, OR. What fun ~ hundreds of vegan bloggers, exhibitors, new food tastings, speakers and events, in one of the most vegan-friendly cities in the country.
Some of the amazing new items that participants got to try:
- Coconut Bliss Salted Caramel & Chocolate Pint, Strawberry Love Bars, Cafe Latte Bars
- Missionary Chocolates Coconut Palm Sugar Truffle
- Pacific Northwest Kale Chips Cascade Ranch flavor
- Upton’s Naturals Bacon Seitan
and much much more!
But I did do some tasting of my own, in the form of this amazing new pasta recipe. After making the wonderful Vegan Bacon Cheddar Mini-Quiches last week, I had some Phoney Baloney’s coconut bacon left to use. When I was deciding what to make, spaghetti carbonara came to mind. I have no idea why, as I’ve never before had it, vegan or not, but it sounded like a great, quick recipe to create.
Since I’d never had it, I did a little research on various ways to make it, and found some delicious-looking combinations, like this one and Vegan Dad’s recipe using coconut cream, along with some non-vegan recipes. Seems easy enough, right? Only a few ingredients, a quick cook for the pasta, and tossing it all together. And it was ~ within 45 minutes I had it prepared, photographed, dishes washed and was ready to eat!
And this is all it takes:
- 1/2 lb. pasta of choice
- cream sauce
- 1/2 cup coconut bacon
- parsley to garnish
- brazil nut parmesan to garnish*
Sauce ingredients:
- 1/2 cup of thick cashew cream (1/2 cup cashews blended with 1/2 cup water)
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- salt & pepper to taste
While the pasta is cooking, blend together the sauce ingredients. When I made it, I actually ran out of cashews, so I used 1/4 cup cashews and half a ripe avocado. That was a great combination also!
Drain the pasta, leaving a bit of the water on it. Toss the pasta with the sauce, making sure it’s completely covered, and then mix in the coconut bacon. Garnish with parsley and some brazil nut parmesan.
Yum!
* Brazil Nut Parmesan comes from the Cafe Gratitude cookbook, and it’s amazing!
Kelli's Vegan Kitchen 
Oh my word that looks and sounds delicious!!
I’m Italian and used to eat a lot of carbonara before becoming vegan. I tried a few recipes, but yours does sound interesting. Here in Lisbon it’s not possible to find coconut bacon and I was thinking to replace it with smoked tofu. Do you have any other suggestion? Thank you for sharing!
Yes, I think smoked tofu would be great! Thank you!
That’s an amazing recipe, thanks for sharing. Can you believe I’ve been sick a few times until I realized I’m alergic to cashew? hehehe. Any idea how to substitute?
Oh, allergic to cashews… that would be terrible! Can you do macadamia nuts? Or maybe raw tahini, though that would change the flavor a bit….