Name: Creamy Vegan Truffle Pasta
Prep time: 8 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 4 cups nondairy milk; 10 Tbsp flour; 4 Tbsp vegan butter; 12 Tbsp nutritional yeast; 1 tsp salt; pepper (to taste); 3/4 small black truffle (the fungi, not the chocolate!) (finely shaved or roughly grated ); 500 grams pasta; 1/4 small truffle (thinly sliced)

A simple, silky vegan cream sauce with fresh truffle and fettuccine pasta. This Creamy Vegan Truffle Pasta is dairy-free, nut-free and absolutely divine.

Ingredients in Creamy Vegan Truffle Pasta

• A quality pasta

I used fettuccine noodles from a local Italian grocer for this Creamy Vegan Truffle Pasta. They make lovely nests of slow dried pasta that tastes (almost) as good as fresh pasta. If you’d like to go the extra mile, use the Homeade Vegan Pasta portion from this recipe!

• Non dairy milk of your choice

It’s best to use unsweetened (and of course, not vanilla)

• Flour

This is used to thicken your sauce. You can also use cornstarch instead if preferred.

• Vegan butter

I use Earth Balance vegan butter spread. It has a lovely taste and mixes well into sauces.

• Nutritional Yeast

This gives a nice nutty flavour to the vegan cream sauce. It does give it a lovely golden colour as well. You can substitute the nutritional yeast for vegan Parmesan if you prefer. This will make your sauce more white in colour.

• Salt & pepper

Always season a sauce to taste, as we all have different tastebuds and prefer difference levels of salt!

• Fresh black truffle

You can use a small to medium truffle of the black variety. Half of the truffle is grated into the sauce and the other half is used to garnish the top of the dish.

Black Truffles in your Creamy Vegan Truffle Pasta

Truffles are delicious fungi that grow on an underground. Known for their rich earthy flavour, they’re considered a gourmet delicacy in the culinary world. Truffles are generally quite pricey for two reasons: they’re hard to source, and they don’t last long.

Truffles are very hard to cultivate, as they need very specific growing conditions that are difficult and costly to create. It can take years to yield truffles. They also are very perishable and loose their potency quickly once they’ve been harvested.

Where to Buy Fresh Truffles

You won’t find fresh truffles at your big grocery chain. I purchase my truffles from a small, local and independent grocer. Most boutique grocers that sell culinary grade ingredients will have truffles. Sometimes a grocer will only have them in at certain times and their shipments can go pretty quickly! So, it’s best to plan ahead, and sometimes ask to be put on a list. Italian grocers are another great source for fresh truffles.

Cooking with Fresh Black Truffles

Truffles are meant to be the focus of a dish. Their complex, earthy flavour is best suited to a simple cream sauce like the one in this recipe! Avoid cooking fresh truffles too much. Applying too much heat to truffles will affect their flavour and aroma. In this recipe you add the grated truffle only once the sauce is assembled and ready to mix in with the pasta noodles.

How to Store Truffles

It’s smart of plan when you will have your truffle, and what dish you plan to make with it. Truffles are quite perishable, so you want to ideally use them the day (or two) after you buy them. They begin losing quality as soon as they’re harvested, so you’ll get a better taste our of them the sooner consumed. If you have to store your truffle for one to three days you should:

• Store the truffle in an airtight container.

• Avoid letting the truffle be exposed to moisture. You can add dry rice to the container to absorb moisture.

• Store in the refrigerator for up to five days (but 1-3 is preferable)