Creamy Umami Miso Pasta (Blender Sauce)

The sauce on this pasta is to die for! Seriously, I ate way too much of it with a spoon under the guise of "taste testing." I very definately spoiled my dinner and luckily my mother is not here to scold me. It's a bit alfredo-ish, but not that cheesy, and it's shamelessly addictive. Don't skimp on the salt to get the full effect. I'm on a bit of a roll with pastas lately. I always have boxes of low-carb high-protein pasta in my pantry cupboard and pasta makes for easy dinner and work lunches that I can heat up in the microwave. Since this has no veggies, I would usually add a large simple side salad or some veggie sticks to a meal like this. 3 cups (90g) mixed greens with 1½ Tbsp (23ml) of the Garlic Oregano Vinaigrette from my first book adds only 2g net carbs and 140 calories, creating a well-rounded and nutritious meal. Most vegan keto pastas are a bit high in carbs, so to make this one work for you, you could divide the recipe into 5 or 6 servings instead (9g and 7.5g net carbs, respectively). However you choose to accompany or divide it, enjoy!
Yield: 4 servings | Sauce: 4 serving of about ¼ cup + 2 Tbsp (90g) each, totaling about 1½ cups (360g)
​Macros (per serving): 335 calories | 31g protein | 18g fat | 11g net carbs ​
​Macros (Sauce) (per ¼ cup + 2 Tbsp): 175 calories | 6.5g protein | 14g fat | 4g net carbs
Prep/Cook: 20 minutes
Equipment required: a blender with a soup function (soup function optional, probably ✎)
Storage: refrigerated for up to 5 days.
Other Ingredients:
  • 4 servings (8oz | 227g) low-carb pasta, e.g. soy or lupin-based ✎
Sauce Ingredients:
  • 1 cup (240ml) soy or pea milk
  •  ⅓ cup (43g) slivered almonds, soaked in the milk for a few hours or overnight (refrigerated) ✎
  • 2 Tbsp (34g) white or chickpea miso paste
  • 2 Tbsp (27g) vegan butter, refined coconut oil, or neutral-flavored oil of choice
  • 1½ Tbsp (23ml) lemon juice (about half a medium lemon)
  • 1 Tbsp (5g) nutritional yeast flakes
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • ¼ tsp Herbes de Provence or Italian seasoning 
  • ⅛ tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional or to taste)
  • ⅛ - ¼ tsp salt (to taste)
Directions:
  1. Prepare your pasta as per the package directions. When cooked, drain and return to the empty pot.
  2. Meanwhile, put all sauce ingredients in the blender.
  3. Select the soup function on your blender and start.
  4. When the cycle has finished, add the sauce to the pot with the pasta and mix.
  5. Cook on medium heat until desired serving temperature and sauce consistency is reached. I find that edamame pasta in particular releases water when a sauce is added, so I need to cook off that water to return my sauce to its intended consistency. However, if your pasta does not do this, this step may be unnecessary.​
  6. Divide the pasta between 4 dinner bowls, top as desired, and enjoy hot.
​Optional toppings: crushed black pepper, vegan parmesan, thinly sliced/shaved Brazil nut, nutritional yeast flakes, hemp hearts, and fresh or dried herbs like basil, oregano, or parsely.
✎ Notes:​
  • I haven't made this sauce without the soup function on my blender, but I assume that if you blended it to smooth in a high-powered blender and then heated in separately, that would work out alright. I'd suggest using medium-low heat and mixing often. Blended nuts can cook and clump when heated aggresively.
  • I've calculated the macros with the NCCDB entry in Cronometer for edamame pasta. I enter 640g cooked pasta for the 227g dry pasta given in the ingredient list. This roughly matches the macros on my product label (Explore Cuisine). Other low-carb pasta option would be lupin or (black) soybean pasta. If you have a higher carb limit, you could use chickpea or lentil pasta. If this recipe were made with chickpea pasta, the macros would be roughly 385 calories, 19g protein, 18g fat, 31g net carbs. With a lentil pasta, the net carbs would likely be a bit higher still. 
  • If you need to make this nut-free, I would suggest using ¼ cup (35g) sunflower seeds and 1 Tbsp (10g) pumpkin seeds. The sauce will 1g net carbs higher than the original recipe, but other macros and calories will be the same.
  • Macros for this recipes are calculated with American national nutritional data (i.e. NCCDB & USDA entries in Cronometer) for all ingredients apart from the nutritional yeast flakes (blend of Bob's Redmill and Foods Alive unfortified).
  • Macro numbers are rounded. Numbers equal to or greater than 10g are rounded to the nearest whole number (e.g. 10g, 11g, 12g, etc.) and numbers below 10g are rounded to the nearest 0.5g (0.5g, 1g, 1.5g ... 9g, 9.5g). Any numbers below 0.5g are given as is (e.g. 0.1g, 0.2g, etc.). Calories are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.