The Best Creamy Vegan Chicken Alfredo Recipe

Vegan Chicken Alfredo is a super easy dish that's ready in 20 minutes! With an easy-to-make creamy sauce and tender soy curl chicken, just make your pasta, cook your protein, and blend your sauce! This recipe works great with other proteins as well!

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Hey Internet, We're back with another great pasta recipe! With Liz back in school, we needed another weeknight recipe to to help make evenings easier. And this an amazing comfort dish that can be made with pantry staples! If you've tried other vegan alfredo recipes and have been unimpressed, we urge you to try this one.

What binds it all together is it's cashew alfredo sauce (we have substitutions listed below for our nut-free friends). Cashews are great for making dairy-free sauces as they add rich flavor and a creamy texture when they are blended. Coupled with garlic, onion, and a pinch of white pepper, you get the pefect vegan alfredo sauce! Paul likes to add black pepper as well, but they are a pepper fiend and hold the grinder over their plate for a solid minute, so let's ignore them.

As for the vegan chicken, we used one our favorite proteins; soy curls! These are made from dried soy beans. They can then be rehydrated, preferably with a flavorful broth, and then cooked into incredible tasty morsels. We've done so many different meals with this meat-substitute. From spicy Vegan Taco Soup, to tender Carne Asada , to sloppy-joe like Vegan BBQ Chicken, to comforting Vegan Fish Cakes, and even our favorite Vegan Bacon Recipe.

And if you don't have soy curls, don't worry! This recipe does great with other vegan proteins. You can easily marinate some tofu to taste just like chicken. Seitan Chicken is also another great replacement that can be made ahead of time. And of course, store bought vegan chicken works great. We use that as meal prep all the time and, after a nice dice, can easily be added to this vegan alfredo pasta.

Our dairy-free alfredo sauce tastes even better than the real thing and it's so creamy and rich! So grab your favorite pasta and let's get started!

Why This is the Best Vegan Alfredo Recipe

• Super Easy: Start a pot of pasta water, soak the soy curls and cashews, and then blend the sauce! you can either pan fry or, for more saved time, air fry the soy curls. It's a really easy recipe, even for first time cooks! 
• Simple Ingredients: With only eleven ingredients, and over half of them are spices, we've made this recipe with your pantry in mind!
• Lots of Customizations: Don't have soy curls or cashews? We got a lot of substitutions for both of them. We also have great ideas to spice this recipe up even more!

Ingredients

Pick up the following simple ingredients for this vegan fettuccine alfredo recipe the next time you're at your local grocery store. See the recipe card at the bottom of this post for full ingredients, instructions, and accurate nutrition information (to the best of my ability; please consult your physician, registered dietitian, or healthcare professional if you have specific dietary needs or need to meet certain daily values of any nutrient). I give substitutions for the ingredients in the section below this one, so most people can still make this recipe!

• 1 Pound Pasta: We prefer a creamy fettuccine alfredo; long and thick pasta noodles that you can twirl on your fork. You can use any noodle for this recipe if you like, but this recipe makes enough sauce for 16 oz of pasta.
• 4 Cups Dried Soy Curls, Using the Long to Medium Strips: Soy curls come in bags and they come in various sizes. From long strips the size of fingers to tiny little crumbles. For this recipe, you'll want to sort out the larger pieces and measure them out in a measuring cup. Make sure to save the small bits, as they can be still used for a number of great recipes, like Vegan Chicken and Stars!
• 5 Cups Vegan Chicken Broth: We use Better Than Bullion No-Chicken Paste and then mix it with water. It's our favorite vegan chicken broth replacement: not just for the taste, but it also takes up very little space in out fridge. 

Sauce Ingredients

• 1.25 Cups Raw Cashews + Hot Water To Soak: If you have a high-powered blender, you can get away with not soaking the cashews. You'll need to scrape down the side of the blender once or twice, but it turned out smooth for us. If you don't have as strong of a blender, soaking the cashews softens them to make them easier to blend. Make sure to strain the water out of them before using!
• 1 Cup Water
• 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
• 3 Tablespoons Nutritional Yeast
• 2 Teaspoons Onion Powder
• 1.5 Teaspoons Garlic Powder
• ½ - ¾ Teaspoon Salt
• ⅛ -¼ Teaspoon White Pepper or To Taste

Substitutions

• Cashews: Raw hulled sunflower seeds can be used one-to-one in this recipe. Sunflower seeds can make a creamy alfredo sauce as well when blended with liquids (and they're quite a bit cheaper! We make a lot of sunflower seed cream in our house). Another option is silken tofu. Silken tofu is pretty packed with water, so you may need to adjust the liquids that go into the sauce. You'll likely not need the cup of water with it, but maybe you'll need a splash of almond milk or something like that. Other options include vegan heavy cream or full-fat canned coconut milk!
• Soy Curls: Most vegan chicken replacements work well in this recipe! We make this Vegan Seitan Chicken with our pastas all the time. The cutlets last about a week in the fridge, so we can just chop them up into slices or cubes and plop them on our food. Tofu is another great choice for this dish. You can serve it with a just a light sear, but if you soak it in a little vegan chicken broth and let it marinade for a few hours (the longer, the better), it will come out super flavorful as well!
• Lemon Juice: A good substitute for lemon juice is white wine vinegar. You'll still be able to get some great brightness into your meal while using a shelf-stable ingredient.
• Vegan Chicken Broth: In a pinch, you can use a vegetable broth to rehydrate the soy curls. We tested this recipe once with it and we found ways to make it more chickeny. We added poultry seasoning, which is just a mix of spices typically used to flavor chicken, and mixed it into the broth.

Customizations

• Red Pepper Flakes: To spice things up!
• Fresh Chopped Parsley: Add a bit of zing by quickly chopping up some fresh parsley and sprinkling it on top of your dish.
• Vegan Parmesan Cheese: VioLife makes a great block of vegan parmesan that grates easily with a microplane. You can also make your own using this Vegan Parmesan recipe. 

How to Make Vegan Chicken Alfredo

1. Start the Pasta Water: Add water to a large pot and let it come to a boil. Add the pasta around step 5.
2. Soak the Cashews: Heat about a cup of water, either in the microwave or a kettle. Add the cashews and let soak for 5 to 10 minutes. Strain the cashews out of the water before using!
3. Soak the Soy Curls: Add the broth to a large bowl or 8 cup measurement and then add the soy curls. Mix them in so they are covered and let soak for 10 minutes.
4. Make the Sauce: Add all the sauce ingredients to the blender and blend until smooth, which might take a couple of minutes (depending on your blender). You may need to scrape down the sides of the blender once or twice to fully incorporate everything.
5. Cook the Soy Curls: Remove the soy curls by grabbing them with clean hands and lightly squeezing the liquid out of them. Make sure to save the excess broth. Add the soy curls to a large pan and spray with cooking oil spray or you can use olive oil. Cook until they start to slightly brown. Then add splashes of the remaining broth to impart more flavor to the soy curls. Cook until desired browning and texture.
6. Combine: By now your pasta should be done and strained. Add the pasta back into the empty pot and add the pasta sauce. Stir until it is fully mixed.
7. Serve: Add pasta to bowls and then add soy curl chicken and any other toppings you want. Enjoy!

Storage Instructions

Add the pasta to airtight containers. Store in a refrigerator for up to 3 days. The noodles will likely absorb some of the sauce, so when reheating make sure to add a little vegan butter, margarine, or olive oil. A few minutes in the microwave should have it nice and warm again.

More Great Vegan Pasta Recipes

• 15 Minute Vegan Garlic Noodles
• Easy Yet Fancy Miso Mushroom Pasta
• Vegan Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta
• Vegan Sausage Pasta
• Vegan Creamy Pasta
• Vegan Tahini Pasta
• Vegan Pasta Primavera
• Vegan Rasta Pasta
• Vegan Sheet Pan Roasted Vegetable Pasta with Lemon Miso Sauce

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