Creamy Vegan Butternut Squash Pasta (dairy free, nut free)

This Creamy Vegan Butternut Squash Pasta is simple to make and delicious! The puréed roasted butternut squash sauce contains no dairy or nuts, making it perfect for anyone with food allergies or intolerances. Plus, it’s so creamy you would never guess it’s made of vegetables!

Ingredients needed for Creamy Vegan Butternut Squash Pasta

Butternut squash: this is the bulk of the sauce and also what helps to give our sauce a delicious creamy texture. For ultimate convenience, I used frozen butternut squash, so no prep was needed here!

Onion & Garlic: these flavour boosters are roasted added a delicious flavour to the sauce.

Dried Herbs: these are added to flavour the roasted veggies.

Vegetable broth: this is the liquid for the sauce. You can swap for chicken broth if you don’t need the recipe to be vegetarian.

Nutritional yeast: this vegan ingredient is high in B vitamins and adds a cheese-like flavour to the sauce.

Pasta water: don’t forget this step! Adding pasta water to your sauce helps your sauce cling to the noodles.

Dijon mustard: this secret ingredient adds a subtle yet noticeable flavour boost.

Noodles: you’ve got options here. I used spaghetti noodles when testing and shooting this recipe. But any noodle type would work!

Optional: you can also add parmesan cheese to the sauce (if you don’t need to keep it dairy-free) or vegan parmesan as an alternative. This isn’t necessary for the recipe, but it’s a tasty addition!

Tips to make this a balanced meal: 

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of pasta. It’s family-friendly, is quick to make, and can certainly be healthy if served in a balanced way. Here are two components to be sure to include with this meal to keep things balanced:

Protein:

Be sure to include a source of protein with this meal. Protein helps give you a feeling of fullness and also helps to keep portions in check.

To keep this recipe vegan, you can serve it with canned beans or crispy roasted lentils (my personal fave – see below for details!). For a super quick, no-effort protein addition, make this recipe with chickpea or lentil pasta. This type of pasta has a significant amount of protein serves as both your pasta sauce vehicle AND your protein source, ultimately cutting down on time and energy in the kitchen.

If your family isn’t vegetarian, you can serve this recipe as a side dish to chicken or any meat.

More vegetables:

Added veggies are never a bad thing! As it stands, the butternut squash sauce provides over 1 serving of vegetables per person. I always like to aim for 2 servings of veggies at meals for adults to keep things balanced.
Pair this pasta with a side salad, or top with roasted vegetables.

How to make Creamy Vegan Butternut Squash Pasta

Step 1: roast the vegetables

Spread the butternut squash, onion, and garlic across a medium-sized, parchment-lined sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil (about 1.5 tbsp) and season with herbs, salt, and pepper. Mix until combined. Bake this mixture at 425F for ~20-25 minutes, until the onions and garlic have started to brown.

Step 2: purée the sauce

If you have an immersion blender, this is the easiest way to purée the sauce. Or at least cuts down on cleaning (I hate cleaning my blender for some reason!). For this method, add the sheet pan contents to a small or medium-sized pot along with the additional sauce ingredients. Purée until smooth. Gently warm the sauce on the stovetop as your waiting for your noodles to boil.

If you don’t have an immersion blender, transfer your ingredients to a blender and puree until smooth. Pour into a small pot to warm while the pasta is cooking.

Step 3: combine the creamy vegan butternut squash pasta sauce with the noodles

Once noodles have cooked to your liking, strain and add back to the pot. Don’t forget to reserve 3 tbsp pasta water to add to your sauce! You can mix this in at any point. Pour your creamy butternut squash pasta sauce over the cooked noodles, mixing until combined.