Vegan Adventures! Recipe 1 – Broccoli and Chickpea in a white sauce
Yes – you read that correctly – VEGAN!
A bit of backstory here. Jason and I made the decision in the beginning of March to make a massive lifestyle change. Although our move to the island healed us in so many other ways, we were still not feeling awesome. That is, until we completely changed our diet.
No, we are not 100% vegan. I think the new term is Flexitarian. We eat plant-based, but also include eggs and honey in our diet. Not quite vegetarian, because when we are on our boat, we will most likely consume the fish we catch.
Focusing on content creating as our new lifestyle has also entered into our cooking routine. We work together to get the recipes, do the photography, filming, and post-production. It’s just another thing we enjoy doing together. Not all our meals are big productions, as we do eat A LOT of amazing salad creations every day. So, when you see a recipe, it’s one of the special days that we look to inspire ourselves by trying a vegan recipe that I see on Instagram or Pinterest.
Today’s blog includes the recipe and instructions for making broccoli and chickpeas in a white sauce. I found the recipe on Instagram (@enjoyveganrecipe). We did make a few alterations to the original recipe.
Broccoli and Chickpeas in a White Sauce
- 1 cup raw cashews
- 3 cups bite-size broccoli florets
- 1 cup soaked cashews
- 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp garlic
- 1/2 cup onion
- 1/2 tsp ground pepper
- 1-1/2 cups water
- salt to taste
- 1 can of chickpeas
- Your choice of pasta
- Add 1 cup raw cashews to small saucepan with water to cover the cashews by 2-inches
- Bring water to a boil
- Remove cashews from heat and set aside to soak for about 15 minutes
- Lightly blanch 3 cups bite-size broccoli florets. Boil for a couple minutes and run under cold water
- Add 1 cup soaked cashews, 1/3 cup nutritional yeast, 1 tbsp garlic, 1/2 onion powder, 1/2 tsp ground pepper, 1-1/2 cups water to a blender. Blend sauce until smooth.
- Add salt to sauce to taste
- Heat sauce in large sauce pan until the sauce starts to thicken
- Mix sauce in with broccoli and chickpeas
- Cook until heated through
- Serve with desired amount of pasta
Give it a try! Personally, I would have added more salt/pepper as it turned out a bit bland, but not too much! We have actually been using ground up lion’s mane mushrooms as a salt alternative. Works great!