Oil free vegan creamy lemon pasta recipe with fresh asparagus and zucchini. A whole food plant based dinner recipe that takes less than 30 minutes and is high in protein.

This lemon asparagus pasta is a great healthy plant based summer meal. You can swap the vegetables with your own options. I used zucchini and asparagus in the recipe card below, but you can also use peas, broccoli, spinach, and other green veggies.

What I love most about the lemon cream sauce pasta is that you can cook it in under 30 minutes and it is a balanced and filling vegan meal with a high protein content. The lemon – sage mix gives the recipe such a fresh and light flavor.

Nutrition of the creamy lemon pasta

The creamy lemon pasta sauce is made without oil or cream. The main ingredients of the sauce are tofu and cashews.

The tofu makes the sauce very creamy, almost like cream cheese, and adds lots of protein and minerals to the meal.

One serving of the lemon cream sauce pasta contains 496 calories, 78 g carbs, 9.8 g fiber, 24 g protein, and 13 g fat.

This dinner is also high in B-vitamins, vitamin K, C, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc.

Substitutions for the vegan lemon sauce pasta recipe

The vegan lemon cream sauce can also be made simply with cashews. For that you need to take out the tofu and double up on the cashews. You also have to add more water to the blender to make it creamy.

This vegan stroganoff is a great example showing how to use cashews only for a cream sauce.

I prefer using whole wheat pasta to make the entire meal whole food plant based but you can also choose lentil pasta, other gluten free pasta, soy bean pasta, etc.

All vegetables can be switched out to your seasonal favorites. Or stick with one vegetable and increase the amount.

I like to add at least 2 cups of uncooked veggies per serving to a recipe. So for the recipe below you would steam 8 cups of raw vegetables and combine these with the pasta and sauce.

How to make the lemon pasta sauce recipe

For the ingredients of the creamy lemon pasta, please check the recipe card below.

To make the meal, cover the cashews in warm water and soak for at least 10-15 minutes, then drain.

Cook the pasta according to the package, then drain.

Steam the asparagus, zucchini and onion (or your vegetable of choice) in a large pan with about 1/2 cup of water until soft (10 minutes), then drain.

To make the sauce, grind off some of the (washed) lemon peel, then squeeze out the juice. Add both (peel and juice) into a blender together with the drained tofu, drained cashews, garlic, salt, and pepper, and blend until creamy.

You don’t have to press the tofu. You actually want to keep the water in for better blending. If it doesn’t blend, add more water. Add a small bit of water at a time until it forms a smooth, creamy lemon sauce.

Lastly, mix all ingredients together in the large pan and heat up!