Cappellini in Fresh Tomato Cream Sauce
August 9th, 2007
Stumble it!
I’ve been thinking about creating a tomato cream sauce for a while. Actually, I wanted to make a vodka sauce, but I absolutely cannot stand vodka so we never have any in the house. We do, however, continually have a veritable mountain of tomatoes in the kitchen. Hello, Summer!
I’m beginning to get a huge crush on blender sauces. Toss everything into the blender, whiz it up, heat it up and you’re done. Between the blender sauce and the cappellini (aka angel hair) that cooks in 2-3 minutes, this is a lightning quick meal. It’s fast and tasty, but not exactly healthy. It’s a cream sauce! What do you want from me?!
The sauce makes enough to coat two reasonable portions of pasta. I say “reasonable” because when it comes to pasta, that’s not what I usually make. I tend to go for “ridiculous” which usually ends in my husband and I complaining that are stomachs are going to absolutelyexploderightthisminute for an hour after eating. If you make more than two lunch-sized pasta portions, you might want to make more sauce. However, you don’t want to drown your cappellini. This dish works best when it’s just lightly coated.
Cappellini in Fresh Tomato Cream Sauce
Serves Two
4 Small Tomatoes, quartered (about 2 Cups)
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Italian Herbs of your choice
3 Tbs Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1 Tbs Earth Balance
1 Tbs Nutritional Yeast
2-4 Cloves Garlic, optional
Heat well-salted water for you pasta.
While heating, whiz your tomatoes around in your blender until it becomes as smooth as it’s going to get. You should now have 1 cup of pink tomato sludge. Add remaining ingredients and blend again until well combined. Add mixture to a skillet over medium heat. Once you start to see it bubble, you’re going to have to stir it fairly constantly so it doesn’t burn. Use one of those fun rubber spatulas for this, I think it does the job best.
The sauce will be a light pink color when you start, but by the time it’s done it’ll be a rich, creamy orange. You basically want to cook it until the tomatoes lose their raw taste, which shouldn’t take too long, about 10 minutes.
Just before the sauce is done, add your pasta (broken in half for easier mixing with the sauce) to the water. Check for doneness after 2 minutes. Strain and add pasta directly to the sauce, right in the skillet there on the stove. Mix well and serve immediately topped with lots of freshly cracked black pepper.
If this dish sits after the sauce is added, it’ll clump up a bit. It’ll still be tasty, but the noodles will stick together. It’s best if you time it so you can serve it immediately. That should be pretty easy to do since the pasta cooks so quickly–just have it be the last part of your meal that you prepare.
Entry Filed under: fake cheese, herbs, pasta, recipe, sauce/dressing
37 Comments Add your own
1. Celine | August 9th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
you said vodka, I have to run and hide now. this looks fantabulous!
2. Yum DC Emily | August 9th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
When I was in Japan, they made a tomato mango pasta sauce once. It was fucking phenomenal.
3. vegan noodle | August 9th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
What a beautiful photo, and the recipe sounds delicious!! Thanks for the post!
4. orangeluna | August 9th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
I just made this using canned tomato sauce. Creamy and good!
5. Lolo | August 9th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
wow, that was fast orangeluna!
6. Michelle | August 9th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Mmmrph. Excuse me while I snarf down my serving of this. Yum! What a great recipe. I blurred it all up in my vitamix and watched it change from pink to orange, just like you described. I used Tofutti’s chive flavor cream cheese instead, because that’s what I had on hand, but it still worked wonderfully. I’ll definitely make this again!
7. Hillary | August 9th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Gorgeous! Haha, I like how you’re “getting a huge crush on blender sauces,” you’re hilarious. The cappelini looks fantastic, and the sauce not too “creamy!” Just perfect.
8. Jillian | August 10th, 2007 at 1:04 am
I buy those little airplane bottles of vodka to make sauce with. Cheap, one-time usage. It’s wonderful with the fresh summer tomato and basil, soy creamer and silken tofu.
Hm, now I want to make it again!
9. David | August 10th, 2007 at 9:05 am
I have to admit that I love your blog, the pictures look amazing, plus the food sounds great.
Now, I admit I am not a Vegan. I respect people who don’t want to eat any type of meat by-product, but for me I do like to eat meat. I don’t go overboard. However I love using your recipes and have used many of them along side a small meat dish.
Keep up the good work
Dave.
10. Patricia Scarpin | August 10th, 2007 at 9:23 am
I love tomato sauce, but this creamy version is new to me - looks delicious!
11. Harmonia | August 10th, 2007 at 10:13 am
That looks amazing!
12. Mona | August 10th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
wow! gr8 blog u’ve here, this is the first time i’m visiting your blog, and liked it a lot. I look forward to try out your recipe very soon. Luv Pasta !
13. Kathryn Elliott | August 10th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
This also looks glorious and I see you’ve used the tofutti cream cheese. I’m going to have to keep my eyes peeled for the closest Australian version. Can I also ask what Earth Balance is? Thanks for this delicious looking recipe.
14. elisabeth | August 11th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
You really are brilliant at this food thing — making a tomato cream sauce out of tofutti! I am also not a vegan, although I don’t eat red or the other white meat. I do LOVE vegetable dishes and tofu and am always looking for tasty new veggie and tofu dishes.
TimeoutNY had a story about career changers and wrote something that people who aspire to be chefs don’t need to go to cooking school. You are certainly proof of that (vegan) pudding.
I am looking forward to your cookbook!
15. Kat | August 12th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
YUM!!!
I made this tonight since I had some great, ripe tomatoes and fresh basil on hand. I didn’t have cappellini so I used regular multigrain spaghetti pasta and also added dried thyme & oregano to the herb mixture. Extremely easy and tasty! I’m eating this right now with “parmesan cheese” (that rice cheese in a shaker) on top!
16. Suganya | August 12th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
I find cappellini and angel hair very delicate to handle. Will try this with spaghetti. I think silken tofu will also be nice addition instead of cream cheese.. Beautiful pic!
17. bethie | August 13th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
jillian, thanks for the airplane vodka bottle suggestion, our corner liquor store has tiny bottles for around a dollar. although i am no a big fan of rachael ray, she has some kind of vodka pasta sauce she makes and calls it ‘you won’t be single for long’ pasta sauce.
18. pretty kitty knitty city &hellip | August 19th, 2007 at 1:03 am
[…] also made Cappellini in Fresh Tomato Cream Sauce from VeganYumYum twice now. It is really really good. It has nutritional yeasts in it which I know […]
19. girl least likely to | August 19th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
oh yum, you have no idea how excited i am to try this! i used to be a big fan back in the pregan days. thank you!
20. Mel | August 21st, 2007 at 8:17 pm
this looks delish! I have to try it!
21. admirer | August 28th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
how do you get such clear and amazing pictures?
22. Bronwyn | August 28th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Do I need to peel and deseed the tomatoes for this? I usually scarf down the good, fresh tomatoes… but our plants are really producing this year! I don’t want to end up with a sauce full of bitter seeds and locular jelly…
23. Kat | September 3rd, 2007 at 1:43 pm
I just made this again - I used baby roma tomatoes still on the vine, and the herb mixture was fresh sage, thyme and oregano. And I used corn penne since I’m trying to do the gluten free thing for a bit. AMAZING!!!
24. mallow | September 7th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
This is going on my list of keepers. I LOVE tomato cream sauce but while I’m not vegan, the idea of all that cream can kind of gross me out. I can’t wait to try this!
25. Penny | September 24th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Hey, I just made this - getting over a cold and wanting tomatoes and garlic and something substantial - and it turned out really well. I made some minor substitutions - olive oil for earth balance - but no big thing. Thanks for doing the blog, it’s really great!
26. wootowl | October 1st, 2007 at 1:11 pm
deeeeeeeeeeeeelish! i added roasted red peppers, roasted garlic and fresh basil, and it was amazing, and really easy to make. i used whole grain angel hair pasta and it was beautiful. i can’t wait to see your cook book!
27. wootowl | October 1st, 2007 at 1:12 pm
deeeeeeeeeeeeelish! i added roasted red peppers, roasted garlic and fresh basil- it was amazing, and really easy to make. i used whole grain angel hair pasta and it was beautiful. i can’t wait to see your cook book!
28. amanda | November 3rd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
i just made this and it was so yummy! i used canned tomatoes and regular spaghetti and it was superb. thanks for helping feed vegans such fine things.
29. Ellen | December 2nd, 2007 at 9:38 am
What’s Earth Balance?
30. Lolo | December 2nd, 2007 at 10:49 am
Ellen - Earth Balance is a vegan butter replacement.
31. heather | January 2nd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
oh my yum! i made this last night for dinner and it was a hit. it reminded me of when i was a high schooler and LOVED those pasta-roni dishes (icky!) — this was fast, delicious, cheap and the color was neat. i roasted the garlic before and it made a nice flavor for it.
32. jaxin | February 19th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I made this when you first posted it and loved it. Tonight while passing the tofutti cream cheese at the store I suddenly remembered it and HAD to make it. I googled “tofu cream cheese tomato sauce” and of COURSE, your blog was the first hit.
Thanks! <3
33. jenny | February 20th, 2008 at 1:42 am
OMG! This was so incredible…as I ate one batch, I started making another! I have been searching endlessly for a good VEGAN cream sauce and I am happy to report that the search is over. Yum yum yum yum yum! Thank you SO much for sharing this. I love it!
34. Paupette | February 20th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Yum - looks amazing! Your comments about expectation and food are so true! Whenever I introduce a non-veg person to a fake meat or fake cheese dish I tell them even though it’s called ‘meat’ loaf or whatever, don’t expect or hope for it to taste like your mom’s meat loaf. Just expect it to be good.
35. Paupette | February 20th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Ha, that last comment was supposed to go under mac n cheeze. But whatever, it all looks amazing!
36. VeganYumYum » Super&hellip | August 12th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
[…] wanted to make a dish similar to this one, but not using tofutti cream cheese. I decided to replace it with cashews. Cashews are the base of […]
37. apples and quinces, lemon&hellip | August 14th, 2008 at 3:28 am
[…] a few things we needed, we came home and I got to work. What did we have, you ask? Why, it was the Cappellini in Fresh Tomato Sauce from YeganYumYum! I don’t have photos of our dinner, but the shot on the recipe’s page […]
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