Recipe: Vegan Vodka Sauce
Category: Recipes Tags: Vegan, Vodka
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The other night, I opened my fridge and found less than half of a bottle of Froggie B vodka in the door leftover from New Year’s. Though my friends and I took a few shots to ring in 2010, I’m not a habitual drinker. I knew I wanted to so something constructive with the leftover liquor, rather than store it for a night of indoor debauchery. First thing that came to mind: vodka sauce.
I’m a huge fan of vodka sauce, namely because of its unique flavor and creamy consistency. Often, it’s made with dairy cream, but I found a lot of great vegan vodka sauce recipes. Many of these versions call for cream substitutes, which I found out how to make on RecipeSecrets.net.
The recipe below is based pretty closely off of a recipe I found on RandomGirl.com, with a few alterations. Visit the site to try the original version, or to check out any of her other veg recipes.
Vegan Vodka Sauce
Source: RandomGirl.com
Makes: About Four Servings
Takes: About 45 Minutes
Ingredients
- Oil
- 10 cloves of garlic
- One 28oz can of plum tomatoes with juice
- Chili powder
- Sea Salt
- Black pepper
- Fresh parsley, chopped
- ½ block of tofu
- ½ cup of soymilk
- ¼ cup of vodka
Directions
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Heat 1 ½ capfuls of olive oil in a medium-to-large skillet. While your oil heats, crush the garlic cloves. I used the tail end of a glass salsa jar to crush my cloves. Rather than mashing the cloves to a pulp, apply enough pressure to break them apart and release some of the juice. Add to pan and sauté for about two minutes, until brown.
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While the garlic sautés, pour the plum tomatoes, with juice, into a blender. Pulse the blender a few times -meaning hold for a couple of seconds at a time, and release- until the tomatoes are chopped. Don’t blend for too long—you don’t want this to become tomato juice.
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Once garlic is browned, pour the tomato into the pan and stir to incorporate the garlic. Salt lightly, and add generous shakes of chili powder into the mixture. Stir again, and allow the sauce to boil. You’re going to want to cover the skillet at this point, because the tomato will bubble and burst all over the place. I wish I had taken a photo of the red splatter all over my stove and counter…
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Reduce the heat -enough so that once the skillet top is removed, the sauce won’t explode wildly all over your kitchen. Add ¼ cup of vodka to the tomato sauce and stir. Let heat for five minutes or so.
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While your mixture heats, mix tofu and soymilk in a blender until creamy—you want to make sure the lumps are gone. This will constitute your “cream.”
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Stir the “cream” into the tomato sauce. Allow to heat for another two-to-three minutes. Add another 1 ½ capfuls of olive oil to the sauce and stir. At this point, you’ll want to add salt/pepper/chili powder to taste.
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After seasoning, and while the sauce continues to heat, chop about ¼ cup forth of parsley. Sprinkle half of the parsley into the sauce and allow it to heat for another 3-5 minutes. Hopefully by now, you’ve chosen and prepared whatever kind of pasta you wanted according to package directions. If not, do it now…
[tick…tock…]
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Drain the water from your cooked pasta. With pasta still in the pot, stir your vodka sauce in. Heat the pasta over a medium flame for 5-10 minutes, long enough for the sauce to start sticking to the pasta. You’ll also find this extra heating time will burn more alcohol off of the vodka, and get rid of that “liquor” taste.
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During the five to ten minutes while the sauce and pasta are heating, stir in the remaining parsley.
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Spoon onto a pretty plate and enjoy!
