Read more: Vegan Nduja Penne

King oyster mushrooms have a similar texture to calamari rings. They’re sliced into rounds, marinated in a mix of lemon juice, zest, and nori for a hint of the sea. Sautéed in olive oil with garlic and chili, the mushrooms soak up all the vibrant flavors, while cherry tomatoes, parsley, and a splash of white wine create a rich and flavorful sauce.

This dish brings all the comforts of a festive Italian meal but stays completely plant-based. Perfect for Christmas Eve or any occasion, it’s proof you can enjoy traditional flavors in a vegan way. Serve it with spaghetti or any pasta of your choice for a crowd-pleasing holiday dish.

Read more: Spaghetti With Garlic, Oil, Chili, and Breadcrumbs

Mushroom calamari spaghetti

Try this vegan take on the classic Italian dish of calamari spaghetti. This dish uses king oyster mushrooms in place of seafood.

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Servings4

Ingredients

• Juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 1 nori sheet cut into small pieces
• 4 large king oyster mushrooms
• Olive oil
• 1 garlic clove crushed
• 1 small chili finely diced
• 125 ml white wine
• 200 g cherry tomatoes halved
• Large handful of parsley chopped
• 250 g dried spaghetti
• Salt

Instructions

• Prepare the marinade by combining the lemon juice, zest, nori, and 125 ml of water in a bowl.
• Slice the mushrooms into rounds, then cut holes out of each, creating calamari rings. Toss the mushrooms in the marinade and marinate for 10-15 minutes. Drain the mushrooms and reserve some of the marinade.
• In a large frying pan, add a generous glug of olive oil and the garlic and chili. Warm over low heat, being careful not to brown the garlic. Add the mushrooms, a dash of the marinade, and sauté for a few minutes.
• Pour in the wine, increase the heat and cook until most of the wine has evaporated. Stir through the tomatoes and parsley. Simmer until the tomatoes begin to break down, about 10 minutes. Add a splash of water to prevent it from drying out.
• Cook the spaghetti in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente. Reserve about 200 ml of the pasta water before draining.
• Transfer the spaghetti into the mushrooms, stirring through splashes of the reserved pasta water to help coat the sauce. Season with a large pinch or two of salt. Continue to cook until heated through.
• To serve, drizzle over olive oil and garnish with extra parsley.

This recipe was reprinted with permission from Nadia Fragnito from The Vegan Italian Kitchen and excerpted from NATALE: Recipes for a Vegan Italian Christmas. You can find her website here and her Instagram here.

Read more: These ‘Crab’ Cakes Are A Perfect Vegan Starter

This article was written by Nadia Fragnito on the PBN Website.

Read more: 23 Comforting Vegan Pasta Recipes

This dish is a great weeknight meal if you’re in the mood for something tasty and comforting. It takes just 25 minutes to make, and requires only eight ingredients.

Traditionally, breadcrumbs were used as an economical substitute for parmesan cheese in Italian cuisine. They enhance the texture and flavor of the dish while also absorbing its seasonings. If you’d like, you can also add vegan parmesan or nutritional yeast for extra richness.

Read more: 11 Vegan Italian Recipes

Spaghetti aglio olio & peperoncino (alla briciola)

Enjoy the delicious flavors of garlic, olive oil, and chili, combined with the sweetness of sundried tomatoes and the satisfying crunch of breadcrumbs. This is an exciting twist on the classic Italian dish, that's sure to let your pasta heart skip a beat!

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Duration25 minutes mins

Cook Time15 minutes mins

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Servings4

Ingredients

• 225 g spaghetti
• 60 ml oil from a jar of sundried tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp chili flakes
• 35 g sundried tomatoes, finely chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 60 g golden breadcrumbs
• 2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Instructions

• Cook the spaghetti according to package instructions until al dente
• While the pasta cooks, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and chili flakes and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
• Add sundried tomatoes and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes.
• Drain the spaghetti and reserve 120ml of the pasta water.
• Add the spaghetti to the skillet with the sauce and toss to combine. If the pasta seems dry, add some of the reserved pasta water to loosen it up.
• Meanwhile, heat a separate small skillet over medium heat. Add breadcrumbs and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and crispy, about five minutes.
• Serve the spaghetti topped with the breadcrumbs and chopped parsley.

This recipe was republished with permission from Romy London.

Read more: 3 Vegan Pasta Bake Ideas

This article was written by Romina Callwitz on the PBN Website.

Read more: 6 Vegan Pasta Salad Recipes

This recipe comes from Sam Turnbull’s vegan cookbook Craving Vegan. You might know her from her blog, It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken. This dish focuses on minimizing effort while maximizing deliciousness. 

Made by adding uncooked spaghetti into a baking dish with the sauce ingredients, this spaghetti bake removes all the hassle of having to stand by the stove. The spaghetti simply bakes in the oven, meaning prep time is a quick 10 minutes. And all you have to do is top it with the creamy alfredo sauce and enjoy, making the dish delightfully simple.

The benefit of using an oven to make pasta is that you can relax or do other things while the saucy spaghetti cooks. Give this recipe a try if you’re often busy or need a break from more intricate vegan meals.

Read more: 10 Vegan Noodle Recipes

Saucy spaghetti bake

The best part about this saucy spaghetti bake is that you can keep the leftovers for three days. Just be sure to cool your dish before storing it. It's recommended you use wheat pasta for the starch needed to make this dish come together, but feel free to use gluten-free pasta too.

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Duration1 hour hr 5 minutes mins

Cook Time55 minutes mins

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Servings6

Ingredients

For the spaghetti

• 1 lb (454 g) uncooked spaghetti
• 1 jar (22 fl oz/650 ml) prepared tomato sauce
• 3½ cups (875 ml) water
• ¼ cup (60 ml) tomato paste
• 1 yellow onion chopped
• 4 cloves garlic minced or pressed
• 1 tsp dried basil leaves
• 1 tsp dried oregano leaves
• ¾ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper
• ¼ tsp crushed red pepper flakes optional

For the creamy alfredo sauce

• ¼ cup (60 ml) vegan butter
• 2 cloves garlic minced or pressed
• ¼ cup (60 ml) all-purpose flour
• 1½ cups (375 ml) plant-based milk (such as oat or soy)
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) nutritional yeast
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp dried basil leaves
• ½ tsp onion powder
• ¼ tsp black pepper

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C).

For the spaghetti

• In a large 4½-quart (4.5 liter) casserole dish, combine the spaghetti, tomato sauce, water, tomato paste, onions, garlic, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes (if using).
• Use tongs to mix everything until combined. Cover and bake for 40 minutes, stopping halfway through to stir and make sure the pasta isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan.

For the creamy alfredo sauce

• While the spaghetti is baking, melt the vegan butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook for about 1 minute while stirring. Sprinkle with the flour and stir to make a paste.
• Cook the flour paste for 1–2 minutes while stirring frequently to cook the flour. Whisk in the plant-based milk, nutritional yeast, salt, basil, onion powder, and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook until the sauce is nice and thickened, about 5 minutes. remove from the heat.
• After the pasta has baked for the 40 minutes, remove the lid and spread the alfredo sauce over the pasta. return to the oven and bake another 10–15 minutes, until bubbly. Allow the pasta to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Excerpted from Craving Vegan by Sam Turnbull. Copyright © 2023 Sam Turnbull. Photographs by Tanya Pilgram. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

Read more: 10 Vegan Date Night Dinner Recipes

This article was written by Sam Turnbull on the PBN Website.

Pasta was first produced in Italy hundreds of years ago, and is now readily available in pretty much every grocery store you can find. It’s cheap, versatile, and can be found as an ingredient in all kinds of meals, whether you’re eating at a fine dining restaurant or cooking a 10-minute dinner at home. 

Not all pasta is the same, and there are some products that vegans must avoid. Here’s everything you need to know. 

Is pasta vegan?

The short answer to this is: sometimes. The vast majority of dried pasta that you buy at the store will indeed be made without animal products. These kind of pastas typically just contain wheat. 

This means that pastas like white or wholewheat spaghetti, fusilli, penne, tagliatelle, rigatoni, linguine, and any others that are found in the cupboard section of the grocery store will typically be vegan-friendly. Many people are now opting for pastas made from chickpeas, lentils, buckwheat, and other non-traditional bases. These are generally perfectly safe to eat as a vegan as well. 

You should always check the label, however, as some brands or types of dry pasta will include egg in the ingredients. In some countries, the egg ingredient will be highlighted in bold if it’s present, given that it’s a known allergen. If not, it should be easy to spot as most pastas contain very few ingredients. A few pastas contain squid ink, which is used to dye certain brands black, so make sure to keep an eye out for this.

Vegan pasta sauce

Many of the sauces you buy at the grocery store will also be vegetable-based and contain no animal products. As well as the obvious exceptions (those based on meat, such as bolognese, or cream, such as carbonara), many people may be unaware that most jarred and fresh pesto you buy contains cheese. Many stores now offer vegan versions of popular non-vegan sauces, but it’s also very simple you make your own at home if you’d prefer. 

Some pasta sauces that are mostly (but not always) vegan-friendly include tomato based sauces (such as tomato and basil, tomato and herb, sundried tomato, tomato and garlic etc). You should avoid tomato and mascarpone, however, as this contains cheese.

What about fresh pasta?

Fresh pasta is typically found in the chilled section of supermarkets, and will often cook more quickly than the dried version. Most of the fresh pasta you’ll find in many parts of the world will contain egg, which acts as a binding ingredient. This means that fresh pasta is usually best avoided on a vegan diet. 

If you’re eating out, you should always check with your server whether any pasta dish is fresh or dry, and whether it contains animal ingredients. An increasing number of restaurants are labeling vegan options on menus, but it isn’t always possible to tell whether a pasta contains egg from the description. 

Can you buy vegan fresh pasta?

Just because you’re vegan doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the joy of fresh pasta. If you’re a keen chef, it’s possible to make your own pasta from scratch without using eggs. Sometimes oil will be used in their place, but a number of recipes require just wheat and water. 

Increasingly, you can also find plant-based fresh pasta in the supermarket. Wicked Kitchen stocks a range of plant-based Ravioli with garlic and spinach, while Meatless Farm offers Ravioli with vegan meat. 

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This article was written by Polly Foreman on the PBN Website.

A simple family-friendly recipe for vegan meat free balls in a delicious tomato sauce.

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Duration1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Cook Time30 minutes mins

Prep Time40 minutes mins

Servings3 servings

Ingredients

For the meatballs –

• Sunflower oil
• 200 g onions roughly chopped
• 20 g garlic roughly chopped
• 200 g mushrooms roughly chopped
• 2 t yeast spread aka marmite, vegemite
• 4 t stock powder
• Salt optional
• 70 g porridge oats
• 70 g gram flour or plain flour

For the sauce –

• Sunflower oil
• 1 onion around 150g, finely chopped
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 t yeast spread
• 2 t stock powder
• Salt to taste
• 200-300 g spaghetti cooked according to packet instructions

Instructions

• Heat your oven to 200c/400f/GM6.
• Heat the oil in a frying pan, once it is hot add the roughly chopped onions. Allow them to cook on a medium heat for around 10 minutes until they are translucent. Add the garlic and mushrooms, mix well and allow them to cook for 5-10 minutes until the mushrooms are browned.
• Put the vegetables into a bowl, blend until smooth. Add the yeast spread, stock powder and salt. Mix in well.
• Add the oats and flour to the bow, mix in well. Allow the mixture to rest for around 5-10 minutes until it has firmed up enough to make into balls. Roll the mixture into 8-10 balls. The mixture will still be quite wet so wet your hands and roll the balls gently between your hands.
• Put a little oil on the baking tray, place the balls in the oil. Bake for around 15 minutes until they are cooked through. You can turn them over halfway through the cooking process so that they brown on both sides.
• Whilst the balls are baking make the tomato sauce. Heat the oil in a frying pan, once it is hot add the finely chopped onions. Allow them to cook on a medium heat for around 10 minutes until they are translucent. Add the tomatoes, yeast spread and salt. Simmer the sauce for 20-30 minutes on a medium heat until the raw taste of the tomatoes has gone and the sauce has thickened.
• Add the balls to the sauce, mix them in gently, add cooked spaghetti, mix again and serve immediately.

This recipe was republished with permission from Chef Day Radley. Find the original recipe here.

This article was written by Chef Day Radley on the PBN Website.

The restaurant is called Mom’s Spaghetti, a nod to the popular lyric from his 2002 hit Lose Yourself. Unsurprisingly, the venue serves various pasta dishes.

What’s more surprising is Eminem turning up to the grand opening to serve the spaghetti himself. The Grammy Award-winner dished out piles of pasta with marinara sauce. Guests could order their meal with animal-based or vegan meatballs. The plant-based meatballs are made with black beans, quinoa, and sweet peppers.

Mom’s Spaghetti

The Grammy Award-winning rapper tested out the concept as a pop-up in 2017. The pop-up was intended to be a quirky promo for his album Revival. But an ‘overwhelmingly positive’ response from fans, according to Eminem’s manager Paul Rosenberg, made the team think twice about setting the eatery up permanently. 

And it seems the hype hasn’t died down. According to Detroit Free Press, the line for the newly opened restaurant wrapped around several blocks. 

​Eminem teamed up with Union Joints Restaurant Group to open the venue. 

Co-owner Curt Catallo commented in a news release: “The opportunity to build a permanent location based on an incredibly meta-reference was one that everyone at Union Joints, as a Metro Detroit restaurant group, took very seriously.”

“We’re proud of the fact that we created a scratch sauce that tastes like it’s straight from the jar, and wok-firing the noodles gives it that leftover pasta snap,” he added.

Mom’s Spaghetti is located on 2131 Woodward Avenue, Detroit. 

This article was written by Jemima Webber on the PBN Website.