Skip the Heavy Cream and Make This Dairy-Free Vodka Sauce
I don’t have a dietary problem with heavy cream, but if I’m scouring around trying to come up with a last-minute dinner idea, pasta with vodka sauce rarely materializes. Not because of the vodka (I have a lot of it now), but because I rarely have cream on hand. As luck would have it, I made a simple pantry pasta that convincingly mimicked the heady creamy sauce without the cream.
The idea is simple: add canned cannellini beans to the tomato sauce and let it simmer. Cannellini beans are prized for their velvety texture, and even aquafaba (cloudy water in a can) is creamier than most other beans. Over time, the beans break down, releasing silky starch and thickening the sauce, mellowing out the tangy tomato flavor. Don’t think of this as a way to trick someone into giving up cream; there is no mistake that there are beans in this gravy. Instead, I like to appreciate it simply as a delicious vodka sauce recipe.
Helpful tools for your next pasta night:
How to make dairy-free vodka sauce
This recipe starts with the same preparation as any vodka sauce recipe – softening the aromatics and adding vodka and tomatoes after – but instead of adding cream, the cannellini beans are simmered a bit at the end. (To make a vegan vodka sauce, simply omit the pancetta.)
1. Roast the aromatics.
Coat the bottom of a medium saucepan with a little olive oil and reduce heat to medium-low. Add the garlic, shallots and chopped pancetta with a pinch of salt. Fry these ingredients until the pork is crispy and the aromas are clear.
2. Add liquid
Add red pepper flakes and add vodka. Let the vodka evaporate by half. This won’t take long – about a minute or two.
3. Grind the butter beans.
Add crushed tomatoes and canned cannellini beans with aquafaba and some water. The beans will thicken the sauce and the water will prevent the starch from burning to the bottom of the pan. Cover the pan with a lid and place on low heat for 15 minutes. Stir the sauce every five minutes or so and break up the beans with a spoon. Sometimes I use a potato masher if my beans are firm. If the sauce is too thick, add a couple tablespoons of water. Once most of the grains have broken down and the sauce has reached the desired consistency, taste it. If more salt or seasoning is needed, adjust now. Then add pasta and serve.
Keep in mind that the beans will leave behind their skins, so the sauce will always have a thin texture. I don’t mind this, but if you want a silkier sauce, run the beans through a sieve (the holes shouldn’t be too small) before adding them to the sauce. The starchy flesh will go away, but the skin will remain.
The following recipe makes two servings and is my lazy version of the previous one. I don’t always have the perfect list of ingredients, but the lesson is that I usually have some kind of substitution in my kitchen. If you’re thinking, “This could work the same way,” give it a try. Instead of pancetta I had sliced ham. Instead of crushed tomatoes, I had a random half-finished jar of tomato sauce. And guess what? This is great.
Lazy Dairy Free Vodka Sauce Recipe
Ingredients:
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1 tablespoon olive oil
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1 shallot, chopped
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2 cloves garlic, minced
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2 slices ham, chopped
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¼ teaspoon salt
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¼ teaspoon pepper flakes
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¼ glass of vodka
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½ cup jarred tomato sauce
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⅓ glass of water
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½ can cannellini beans with aquafaba
1. Add olive oil to a medium saucepan and set heat to medium-low. Add shallots, garlic, ham and salt. Stir and fry for a couple of minutes until the shallots are soft and translucent.
2. Add red pepper flakes and vodka. Stir and let the liquid evaporate by 50%. It will only take about a minute.
3. Add tomato sauce, beans, aquafaba and water. Cover the pan with a lid and bring the mixture to a boil. Stir the sauce every five minutes while chopping the beans. If the sauce becomes too thick, add a little water to the mixture. After about 15 minutes, the sauce should be thick, creamy and ready to serve. Add your favorite pasta and serve immediately.