Sometimes, you just need a dish that packs a punch but doesn’t take an age to prepare. This lemon garlic vegan pasta is one of my go-to dinners when I’ve had a super long day or I’m cooking for one, and I can’t be bothered making something complicated (read as: can’t be bothered with loads of washing up!).
This vegan pasta recipe is very much a two-saucepan, 30 mins max sort of dinner. However, what it lacks in complex culinary concepts, it makes up for in flavour. I mean… we kinda love to see it, right? Let’s get stuck in!
making garlic confit and garlic oil
For the garlic side of things, I tend to use garlic confit and garlic oil. “Confit” sounds fancy, but it’s just a French cooking technique that involves submerging food in fat or oil and cooking it for a long time. What’s the point? The cloves become soft, sweet, and oh so flavourful. You get quite a similar result when you roast garlic. I’m sure we’ve all seen those very satisfying videos, where people squeeze a bulb of roasted garlic, and the soft cloves pop out. I swear I can almost smell those videos!
You can make your garlic confit in advance and store it in the fridge, or you can make it whilst you cook your pasta; it’s totally your call. However, I would recommend making more than you think you need for this recipe. That way, you can store some in the fridge and use the cloves and oil for other dishes.
what you’ll need…
- A small saucepan
- A heat-proof container with a tight-fitting lid
- 3 whole bulbs of garlic
- 2 cups (480ml) of extra virgin olive oil
- Fresh herbs e.g. rosemary and thyme (optional)
let’s get cooking…
- Grab your garlic bulbs and separate each of the cloves, discarding the skins as you go along. Taking a small sharp knife, cut off the ends of each clove and peel them.
- Once all of your cloves are peeled, pop them into your saucepan and cover them with olive oil.
- Place your saucepan on very low heat. The key is to go low and slow with this one, so the garlic cloves have a chance to soften, and the flavour can make its way into the olive oil.
- As the oil comes to a very gentle simmer, give the cloves a little stir. Cooking times will vary depending on how big the cloves are, but typically, it should take between 15 and 30 minutes for the cloves to become soft. To check, use a long knife to poke the cloves. If they feel hard, leave them on the heat for a little longer.
- If you’re not making this garlic confit in advance and you’re making it to go with your pasta right now, I would grab a saucepan and fill it halfway with water. Place this over high heat and add a generous sprinkle of sea salt flakes. This way, your water will be boiling away and ready for your pasta when you’re ready to put it on.
- When the cloves are cooked through, remove them from the heat. They should be soft, but still holding their shape. They will also smell amaaaaazing at this point. If you’re adding fresh herbs to your oil, you should add them in now as your oil cools.
- When the oil has cooled slightly, transfer it to a clean heat-proof jar with a tight-fitting lid.
- You probably won’t need that much garlic for this recipe, so you can store the rest in the fridge for a couple of days, but be careful. Garlic is a naturally low-acid ingredient, and if stored improperly in oil (without oxygen) at a warm temperature (room temperature), it can produce a toxin that causes botulism. To stay on the safe side, store the garlic confit in the fridge as soon as you have taken what you need, and use it within 4 days of making.
it’s pasta time…
Sometimes, I have some garlic confit prepared in advance, and in this case, it’s simply a case of boiling my pasta and adding in a couple of other ingredients before I’m happily slurping up my lemon garlic vegan pasta.
you’ll need…
- A saucepan filled halfway with water
- Sea salt flakes
- 1 lemon (zested and juiced)
- 75g pasta (this makes one portion)
- 1 or 2 cloves of garlic confit
- Garlic oil
- Salt & pepper to taste
let’s get cooking…
- As detailed in step 5 above, you should have a saucepan with salted water coming to a nice rolling boil, as your garlic confit is coming off the heat. Next, you can chuck in your pasta. For this recipe, it really doesn’t matter what kind of pasta you use. I’ve used spaghetti, tagliatelle, and farfalle. But I’ve also used porcini truffle ravioli, and it was *chef’s kiss*. I tend to use fresh pasta, but dried pasta is just as good; it’ll just take a little longer to cook. Fresh pasta should take approximately 3-4 minutes, whilst dried pasta will take approx. 10 mins. I like my pasta to have a little bite to it!
- As your pasta cooks, you can transfer your garlic confit to the heat-proof jar, setting a clove or two (or three or four – I’m not here to judge) to the side. You’ll need to squish these cloves so that they mix with your pasta. For this, you can use a pestle and mortar or a bowl and a fork – whatever you have to hand!
- When the cloves have been squished into a paste, you can add the lemon juice, zest and some garlic oil, and mix until everything is incorporated.
- At this point, your pasta should be al dente and ready to go. Drain off most of the water, leaving ½ cup of pasta water in the saucepan.
- Pop your pasta back on low heat, and pour in the garlic-lemon mixture. Give everything a good mix, so that the vegan pasta is evenly coated.
- Serve piping hot and with a sprinkle of vegan parmesan, if that’s your thing!
eat spaghetti to forgetti your regretti
I finally got my pasta maker, so I’ve been working on perfecting my vegan pasta recipe – when I’m happy with it, I’ll write it up and link it here for anyone who wants to make their own vegan pasta from scratch. In the meantime, you can follow my spaghetti stories over on Instagram. Besides spaghetti spam, I also share a lot of my day-to-day life, food recommendations, and plenty of pictures of my fur babies. Come over and say hi!
Want some more recipes to try? Pop over to the cooking section of my blog.