Looking for vegan pasta recipes? These 5 delicious vegan pasta recipes work for weeknights and are full of plant based flavor.
If you’re looking for go to plant based for weeknights, think vegan pasta recipes! Have you been avoiding pasta because it’s not a typical health food? Good news: a new study found pasta can actually help you lose weight. The Italian researchers found that eaten in moderation, pasta can be part of a healthy diet. And these vegan pasta recipes deliver big flavor with relatively simple preparations. With some advanced planning, most of them can work for weeknights too.
Alex and I don’t eat exclusively vegan, or vegetarian for that matter. But we’re always looking for delicious healthy dinner recipes to get on our table that are loaded with vegetables! And many times we enjoy the challenge of eating vegan recipes for dinner. Our style of eating is called flexitarian: we eat mostly plant based, but occasionally we flex and eat seafood or meat. Vegan recipes like are a weekday staple for us: they’re super flavorful and hearty leave us satisfied without missing any meat. So whether you eat fully vegan or flex like us, we know they’ll be a hit! Ready to get cooking?
1. Creamy Vegan Pasta Marinara
This Creamy Vegan Pasta Marinara is one of our old standbys for weeknight meals. It’s so simple to put together and the tangy, creamy flavor of the marinara sauce is out of this world good! Alex and I developed it based on a recipe that uses yogurt to make marinara sauce into a creamy orange sauce that’s a big like Vodka sauce. For the vegan version, we used soaked cashews and it’s just as good! This one’s 5 star in our book!
Weeknight Hack: The cashews need a 1 hour soak, but you can also can soak them overnight to make the prep even quicker. You also can mince the shallot and garlic in advance and store them refrigerated.
2. Vegan Italian Pasta Salad
Another fabulous vegan pasta recipe of ours is this Vegan Italian Pasta Salad. It’s basically a combination of an Italian salad and pasta: crunchy romaine lettuce is refreshing and contrasts against Kalamata olives, capers, and pepperoncini. There’s a also a smattering of colorful vegetables: tomatoes, zucchini, and red onion. Even though there’s no cheese, it’s a party in your mouth! This vegan pasta comes together in 30 minutes, which is perfect for weeknights.
Weeknight Hack: Since it’s ready in 30 minutes, this one is quick to put together. However, you could slice the romaine and zucchini in advance to make it even more speedy. (We suggest slicing the tomatoes the day of; make sure to store fresh tomatoes at room temperature.)
3. Can’t Believe It’s Vegan Spaghetti and Meatballs
Of all of our vegan pasta recipes, this one stands out! It’s based on a recipe I had on a winter visit to New York City, and I can still remember the cozy feeling of twirling the spaghetti as the candlelight flickered. Upon returning from NYC, Alex and I set about to create our own version of the vegan meatballs that I fell in love with. These vegan meatballs are made simply of oats, potatoes, walnuts, garlic and a few spices. And while that sounds humble, the flavor is absolutely outstanding! You’ve got to serve this one with the most high quality marinara sauce you can find (or even the Creamy Vegan Marinara above!) And you must sprinkle it with this vegan Parmesan cheese. It’s less like a block of Parmesan cheese and more like that shaker can you grew up with. We want to sprinkle this on just about everything!
Weeknight Hack: To make this on a weeknight, cook the meatballs in advance; you can keep them refrigerated and then heat them before serving. You also could make the vegan Parmesan cheese in advance.
4. Easy Vegan Korean Ramen
If you thought vegan pasta recipes were confined to Italian style pasta, think again! This Korean ramen recipe is one of the most delicious we’ve had lately, and it’s all about Asian flavors: gochujang (Korean chili paste), peanut butter, and miso make for a standout vegan ramen broth. Along with veggies like cauliflower, green beans and carrots, the noodles are topped with quick pickled cucumbers that have been marinated with sugar, miso, lime, and some black sesame seeds. The flavor is standout good! This recipe is from Aine Carlin’s book Cook Share Eat Vegan, so we can’t take full credit for the recipe. While the ingredient list may look a little long, it’s actually easy enough for a weeknight. And pretty simple as far as ramen recipes go!
Weeknight Hack: To speed up prep for a weeknight, you can make the quick pickles in advance and chop the veggies. This cuts down significantly on prep time and you can make the ramen in 30 minutes.
5. Peanut Noodles with Napa Cabbage
This recipe is an old favorite of ours and one of our go to vegan pasta recipes for quick weeknight dinner. The flavors are simple: peanut butter, rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil, and soy sauce, but they bring big flavor. This recipe also uses one of our favorite techniques for “cooking” greens without cooking: the cabbage is cooked by pouring the boiling water from the pasta over it. It wilts it down in a few seconds and eliminates the need for dirtying another pan. We’ve used this trick for “cooking” spinach time and time again, like in this 15 minute gnocchi with romseco recipe…which, you could even make as a vegan recipe if you omit the feta and buy vegan gnocchi.
Weeknight Hack: This one is so weeknight friendly, you don’t even need a hack.
Lastly, here are a few other tasty looking vegan pasta recipes from around the web. Happy cooking!
- Amazing Vegan Mac and Cheese from Cookie & Kate
- Creamy Vegan Pumpkin Penne from Love and Lemons
- Vegan Roasted Red Pepper Pasta from Minimalist Baker
- Ditalini with Chickpeas and Garlic-Rosemary Oil from Bon Appetit
Looking for more healthy dinner recipes?
Here are a few more of our favorite healthy dinner recipes on A Couple Cooks:
- Moroccan Spiced Cauliflower Soup
- Mediterranean Quinoa Stuffed Peppers
- Vegan Pot Pie with Sage Crust
- Vegan Pasta Marinara
These recipes are…
Vegetarian, vegan, plant based, dairy free, and naturally sweet.
A Couple Cooks - Recipes for Healthy & Whole Living
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