Quick & Creamy Mushroom Pasta (Blender Sauce)

Not long ago, I posted a recipe for a creamy mushroom soup made in the blender. Since then, I have been thinking about making a quick and easy mushroom pasta with a similar approach. This creamy mushroom pasta can be thrown together in about 20 minutes - or however much time it takes to boil water and cook pasta. Most of the ingredients used are easy to have on hand in your pantry and on your spice rack. The only fresh ingredient is baby spinach, and that can be omitted if you don't have any available. Or, you could thaw some frozen spinach in your pasta water and use that instead. Ideally, you would add a veggie side to this pasta to round out the nutrition and increase the calories - maybe just a simple bowl of mixed greens and vinaigrette - but if you've had no time to shop for fresh produce, this pasta can be a meal on its own. If you need more calories, sprinkle it with hemp hearts, nibble on some nuts, or add a couple tablespoons of light-flavored olive oil to the sauce ingredients. Hope this quick meal brings some ease to a busy day. Enjoy!
Yield: 4 servings | Sauce: 4 serving of about ½ cup (115g) each, totaling about 2 cups (460g) ✎
​Macros (per serving): 295 calories | 31g protein | 11g fat | 10g net carbs ​
​Macros (per ½ cup sauce): 105 calories | 5g protein | 7g fat | 3g net carbs
Prep/Cook: 20 minutes
Equipment required: a blender with a soup function
Storage: refrigerated for up to 5 days.
Other Ingredients:
  • 4 servings (8oz | 227g) low-carb pasta, e.g. soy or lupin-based ✎
  • 4 cups (120g) baby spinach, roughly chopped if large leaves (optional)
Sauce Ingredients:
  • 1 x 8-ounce (230g) (drained weight) can sliced mushrooms, drained and rinsed ✎
  • ½ cup (120ml) soy or pea milk
  •  ⅓ cup (80ml) full-fat coconut milk (or an additional ¼ cup milk and 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon [20ml] light olive oil)
  • 2 Tbsp (20g) hemp hearts ✎
  • 2 Tbsp (10g) nutritional yeast flakes
  • 1 tsp tamari, soy sauce, or aminos
  • 1 tsp Herbes de Provence or Italian seasoning 
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • ¼ tsp garlic powder
  • ⅛ tsp ground black pepper
  • ⅛ tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional or to taste)
  • ½ - 1 tsp red or white wine vinegar (optional)
Directions:
  1. Prepare your pasta as per the package directions. When cooked, drain and return to the empty pot.
  2. Meanwhile, for the sauce, set aside about a third of a cup worth of mushrooms (optional). Put the remaining mushrooms and all other ingredients, apart from the vinegar, in the blender.
  3. Select the soup function on your blender and start.
  4. When the cycle has finished, add the vinegar and the mushrooms you set aside and pulse the blender a couple times to chop small. Or, you can chop these mushrooms by hand and mix them in.
  5. Add the spinach and mushroom sauce to the pot with the pasta. Mix to combine and wilt the spinach. If the pasta is no longer a good serving temperature, or if water has come out of the pasta and thinned the sauce, or if you prefer your spinach more thouroughly cooked, heat on low until desired outcome is reached. Mix frequently if heating.​
  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:​
  • For the sauce, the weight given in the serving size was measured soon after blending. The sauce may weigh more per ½ cup once it has been stored and is less aerated.
  • I've calculated the macros with Explore Cuisine edamame fettucine. Another 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 325 calories, 20g protein, 11g fat, 30g net carbs. With a lentil pasta, the net carbs would likely be a bit higher still. 
  • Mushrooms usually come packed in salt water. If you're concerned about your sodium intake, you could omit the tamari or use low-sodium tamari. If you're using salt-free mushrooms, you could add additional tamari or some celery salt to reach a desired flavor.
  • I find that blended hemp hearts can create a sublte earthy, almost slightly bitter, taste in some sauces, and that this flavor tend to come through a few hours after blending. I can taste it a bit in this sauce. If this taste is strong to you and you dislike it, you could replace the hemp hearts with 4-5 Brazil nuts. This swap will reduce the protein slightly, but will also infuse the sauce with a healthy dose of selenium.
  • Macros for this recipes are calculated with American national nutritional data (i.e. NCCDB & USDA entries in Cronometer) for all ingredients apart from the coconut milk (Aroy-D), hemp hearts (Manitoba Harvest), and 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.