5 Ingredient Vegan Vodka Sauce

No matter what your opinion is, I'm sure this election is making you want to reach for some comfort food (or maybe celebration food!). Thankfully, I've got just the thing. This vegan vodka sauce is comforting, easy, and so delicious.

When it comes to tomato-based pasta sauces, I've always favored vodka sauce. What's not to love? Typically, it is so delicious from adding copious amounts of heavy cream and parmesan cheese.

This vegan vodka sauce skips out on the dairy by using coconut cream! Even better, this vegan vodka only needs 5 main ingredients.

What You'll Need:

• 1 large shallot, diced
• ¼ cup vegan butter
• 1.5 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 oz vodka (I used gin...oops)
• ½ cup coconut cream
• pasta of choice (optional)
• salt and onion powder

That's it! You probably already have most of these in the pantry!

How to Make Vegan Vodka Sauce:

You can whip up this sauce in less than 15 minutes!

First, Start Boiling your Pasta

Assuming you'll add this sauce to a pasta (though you don't have to!), you'll want to get a head start on boiling. I recommend using a short pasta such as penne, farfalle, or elbow. I used casarecce!

Then, Melt the Butter and Sweat the Shallots

In a hot pan or sauce pot, toss in the ¼ cup of vegan butter. This will seem like a lot of butter (that's what makes food taste good). Add in the diced shallot and sauté until the shallots are translucent. You want the shallots to be a background player in this dish, so make sure they don't get crispy.

Next, Add your Tomato Paste and Vodka

Stir in the 1.5 tablespoon of tomato paste and combine that with the shallots and butter.

Turn up the heat and add in 1 fluid ounce of vodka. I actually didn't have any vodka, so I used gin. To be totally honest, I think that any unflavored and clear spirit should work!

Cook this down until you can no longer smell or taste the alcohol.

Finally, Add the Coconut Cream

Once the vodka is cooked down, add in ½ cup of coconut cream. Combine this with the sauce and add salt and onion powder to taste.

Mix the sauce with the pasta, et voila!

Ingredient Substitutions

This recipe is pretty simple and doesn't have many complicated ingredients.

If you don't have tomato paste, try cooking down fresh tomatoes until nearly all of the liquid has evaporated.

If you don't have or don't want to use coconut cream, cashew cream would work very well here! Just thin it out with a bit of water.

As I mentioned before, any clear & unflavored liquor should work here. If you really don't have anything, a dry white wine could substitute.

Make it WFPB! (Whole-food, plant-based)

_{WFPB avoids animal products as well as oils, refined sugars and grains, and processed foods.}

Luckily, there are only a few tweaks to make this recipe WFPB compliant! Simply omit the butter/oil and make sure you use a whole grain or legume-based pasta.

I'm not entirely sure if alcohol is WFPB compliant, but you can always opt for an organic spirit, or omit the alcohol entirely!