How to Make Dairy-Free Creamy Pasta
A large bowl of hot pasta, each strand of which is perfectly coated with a creamy sauce, is perhaps the perfect comfort food. If you don’t like dairy products or they are not that hot, this lunch may seem, unfortunately, out of your reach. Fortunately, there is a very simple way to make a rich and delicious noodle sauce without using a drop of cream or a drop of butter.
The secret, my dear friends, is to increase the starch content by adding a generous half cup of semolina flour (the stuff that dried pasta is made from) to the water just before adding the pasta. This fortified super-starchy water is then added to a pan of delicious crispy pork, blended with ghee for an incredibly velvety, cream-free sauce. To make this dairy-free meal (for 2 very hungry people) you will need:
- 8 ounces of fatty pork, such as pancetta, bacon, or sausage
- 8 ounces dried pasta, any kind will do
- 3 liters of slightly salted water
- 1/2 cup semolina flour
- Fresh pepper
In a large stainless steel saucepan, cook the salty pork product over medium to low heat until the fat is melted and crispy. (Start cooking the pork a couple of minutes before the pasta; you can always remove it from the heat if you’re worried about it burning.) While it’s cooking, bring the water to a boil and add the flour and pasta.
Once the pork is crispy and the pasta is just a little bit al dente, pour a cup of very starchy water into a pot of pancetta, bacon, and / or sausage and scrape off any tasty burnt nuggets. Pull the pasta out of the pan using tongs and toss it into the sauce until it is perfectly al dente and covered in a thick, glossy sauce.
Season with fresh pepper to taste, stir again and transfer to your favorite pasta bowl.
Can you add some cheese now? Of course they could. You can also add some spinach to the pancetta, sauté some chopped garlic in a skillet before adding the pasta water, or toss in a handful of fresh herbs on top. This is an extremely gentle and adaptable recipe, but I highly recommend you try it in its simplest form first. Pork fat and pasta water may not sound like a perfect sauce, but trust me when I tell you it’s rich, smoky, and deceptively creamy.
But if you want fresh parma in there, add it. Don’t let me – or anyone else – tell you the best way to live by eating pasta.