Description
This broccoli pasta can be made in just 30 minutes, it's simple yet fancy, and it can be made vegan and gluten-free!
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 1 large head of broccoli (or approx. 400g frozen)
- 250g pasta (any kind works)
- 1 tbsp avocado oil (or other cooking oil)
- 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped (makes about 1 cup)
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 cup milk of choice (I like cashew milk)
- 1 cup grated pecorino cheese (or parmesan)
- A squeeze of lemon (approx. 1 tsp - 1 tbsp)
- Freshly ground pepper to taste
- Chili flakes (for serving, optional)
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
- Add the broccoli and cook for 5 minutes. If using frozen broccoli, you might need a little longer to bring it back to a boil but frozen broccoli is usually already blanched so it doesn’t need to be cooked as much, just heated up.
- Take the broccoli out and bring the water back to a boil (add more if needed) and cook the pasta in it according to the package instructions. Reserve ½ cup of the pasta water and drain and rinse when soft.
- While the pasta is cooking, heat a pan over medium-high heat and add avocado oil.
- Add the chopped yellow onion and cook for 5-7 minutes until translucent. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 more seconds.
- Lower the heat to medium and pour in the milk. Simmer for 5 minutes.
- Add ½ cup of the pecorino cheese and a squeeze of lemon, and stir to melt and combine.
- Add the broccoli and pasta and toss gently. Let them warm up and add pasta water as needed to thin out the sauce.
- Serve with more Pecorino, pepper, and chili flakes if desired.
Notes
Salt: I only add ¼ tsp to the onion (this helps the onion to release water, soften, and cook better) because Pecorino is a very salty cheese. If you’re using parmesan or no cheese, I recommend adding more salt.
No cheese: If you want to keep this dish vegetarian or vegan, use nutritional yeast instead of Pecorino. I recommend adding 2-3 tbsp to the sauce and adding more to taste.
