10-Minute Vegan Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Looking for a quick easy meal? Then this 10-minute vegan roasted red pepper sauce is for you – toss with pasta and/or veggies for a meal in minutes!

Not only is it the perfect vegan pasta sauce, but it’s also a pretty amazing salad dressing or dip.

Full disclosure, if you’re looking to spend hours slaving over a hot stove in the kitchen you may want to go elsewhere because this recipe is ALL about shortcuts baby!

If you have more time to cook highly recommend you check out this amazing arrabbiata sauce for pasta as well. Or consider making the best vegan garlic bread (it just takes 15 minutes) to serve on the side for the ultimate satisfying vegan pasta meal!

The sauce is also gluten-free so if you have issues with gluten, drizzle it away to your heart’s content over gluten-free pasta.

Ingredients

To make this quick tasty vegan roasted red pepper sauce you’ll need a handful of ingredients, a food processor or a high-speed blender such as a Vitamix.

You’ll also need to have on hand ten main ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Jarred or canned roasted red peppers
• Nutritional yeast
• Smoked paprika
• Cashew nuts
• Coconut milk
• Vegetable stock

(In addition to some salt and pepper to season your sauce, some optional tabasco sauce to pep it up, and some fresh basil if desired to serve).

The olive oil is purely to add a bit extra to the flavor profile, so if you find your olive oil a bit flavorless or are wondering if you can substitute it with sunflower or canola oil or something similar, just leave it out.

You can, of course, roast your own peppers if you desire. Personally, that would be fine for me if this was a weekend meal, but if I’m making it during the week there is absolutely no way I’m going to take the time to roast and peel the peppers myself.

I have said this about a million times in several recipes on this blog (really I should have called it the fiery paprika) but do NOT substitute the smoked paprika with regular paprika. In a punch, high-quality hot paprika will do, but really smoked paprika is what you need for a truly tasty vegan roasted red pepper sauce.

Regular paprika has a distinctly bitter taste when used in larger quantities and it makes a massive difference to the taste of a dish if you exchange regular for hot or smoked.

I live in Spain and although I totally scoff at some “essential” Mediterranean products, decent paprika is a must. If you can get a hand on some Pimentón de la Vera, the picante would be perfect in this dish (Pimentón de la Vera is always smoked).

It’s usually not very expensive either and you can use it in a ton of other recipes.

For example, my vegan bean chilli with Guinness, chocolate and coffee! Or to make scrumptious spicy peri peri sauce!

Check that the coconut milk is unsweetened. If you’re not a fan of coconut milk you can substitute it with another unsweetened plant-based milk, or replace with more vegetable stock.

However, it really does lend extra creaminess to the sauce so I recommend not substituting it.

How to make the sauce:

This is going to be a pretty short section, to be honest. To make vegan roasted red pepper sauce, you’re basically going to drain the soaked cashews, take all of the ingredients and chuck them in a high-powered blender or food processor and blitz them until smooth.

TIP: The cashew nuts should be soaked overnight if you want a really silky smooth sauce.

However, if you’re like me and always forget to soak cashews you can get away with boiling the cashews for 15 minutes and soaking for ten, although there may still be a little “extra” texture to the sauce.

I like to reserve the coconut milk and vegetable stock, blend everything as smooth as possible, and then drizzle the coconut milk in while still processing, and then the stock. I find this way gives a smoother sauce.

You can see in the picture above the texture of the sauce after blending everything without the coconut milk and stock, and below after.

You then just mix the sauce into hot cooked pasta – MAGIC! I usually reserve a little cooking water as well in case I need to thin the sauce.

This recipe will make enough sauce for around 14-15oz dried pasta.

Leftovers

Do note that if you heat your vegan roasted red pepper sauce over the stove or let the pasta sit in it too long, the sauce will thicken.

To avoid this I usually store the sauce separately but if you have leftovers and the sauce is thicker than you’d like you can just loosen it with a little water or vegetable stock.

Then zap in the microwave in 2-minute bursts, stirring between microwaving times, and add more liquid as needed until the desired consistency has been reached.

This sauce will keep up to five days in the fridge and is actually tastier each day as the flavors intensify and deepen. Leftover sauce is also an amazing tomato sauce alternative for vegan pizza recipes.

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Did you make my vegan roasted red pepper sauce? Let me know how much you loved it with a star rating in the recipe box, review, or comment below.

Or take a picture and tag me on Instagram (@the_fiery_vegetarian), I love seeing all your creations!