Name: Vegan Chickpea Florentine Pasta 30 Minute One Pot Meal
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 4 cups pasta of choice; 4 cups vegetable broth; 1 medium white onion, sliced thinly; 4-5 cloves garlic, minced; 2-3 cups spinach; 1.5 cups chickpeas; 1 tsp poultry seasoning; 1 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper; Juice of 1 lemon; 1/4 cup tahini or cashew butter; 1/2 cup unsweetened nondairy milk; 1/4 cup vegan Parmesan topping, optional

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This Vegan Chickpea Florentine Pasta is a creamy, savory, tangy pasta meal comes together in just 30 minutes and only uses one pot! The light, creamy sauce will have you slurping your noodles and licking the bowl, yet it’s healthy and loaded with veggies so no guilt necessary!

Hey Internet, I have another 30 minute one-pot meal for you today! I can tell y’all really like these, and I do too.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to save dishes AND time?!

We’re all busy, but some of us literally have only a half an hour or less to get dinner on the table. Or, you’re exhausted, and it’s between paying out the nose for delivery or eating something junky and fast for dinner.

What if you could make something that was healthy, easy, quick, AND delicious?

It’s not delivery, it’s homemade. :)

This Vegan Chickpea Florentine Pasta is super delicious and easy, and I beg you to try it. I’ve been making it on repeat for a couple of weeks now and you’ve asked questions on the Zardyplants Instagram so I figured I’d better share it with you all.

Florentine refers to a dish that’s made or served with spinach. The spinach in this meal is vibrant and fresh, but it doesn’t make it taste like a salad, for those who are not on speaking terms with veggies (like me 4 years ago).

You’ll want to add this recipe to your arsenal of healthy, easy, and quick meals to make in a pinch, I’ll bet.

Scroll down for links to my other 30 minute meals — I should have just specialized in this! LOL.

Alright, let’s get into the nitty gritty and talk about what you’ll need and how to make it.

Ingredients in Chickpea Florentine Pasta

OK so it’s kind of a running joke that I always start with the ingredients that are in the title. These are pretty obvious, but I like to give lots of options for substitutions because I know y’all got your own tastes and what’s available to you in the store.

Let’s start with pasta. You can use any. There, I’m done.

But seriously, you can use any pasta you’d like. The only thing is that your cook time may change if you are using a gluten-free or bean pasta, so follow the directions on the package (but you still won’t need to drain the pasta or anything like that, just monitor cook time). In any event, test the noodles often.

You’ll also need some cooked chickpeas. I used canned chickpeas but you can make them from dry if you’d like.

For this recipe I used baby spinach for speed, but if you’re using regular spinach, just give it a rough chop first so you don’t have long, stringy greens (not great, lol).

Oh, and if you’d like to use frozen spinach, just defrost it and squeeze all the water out (also lower the amount by about half).

Enough, Captain Obvious

Now the not so obvious ingredients. What should be implicit by now is onion and garlic because I’m obsessed and I’m not even sorry. What, they’re good!

I also cooked the pasta in vegetable broth instead of water to add to the flavor base. You could also mix something like Better Than Bouillon paste into water for really good flavor.

For the creamy sauce, the base is easily customizable. I used tahini as the base, but you could use cashew butter, sunflower seed butter, coconut cream, or even blended white beans or tofu.

To thin the sauce, I recommend keeping it creamy with unsweetened original flavor nondairy milk (any will work, e.g. almond, soy, oat), but you can use water and it will turn out OK.

A squeeze of lemon helps brighten the flavors and give a much needed tang. This also makes the sauce taste a little lighter.

Finally, a few spices, as in salt, black pepper, a little poultry seasoning, do a lot for this Florentine pasta. Poultry seasoning, despite the name, contains no actual chicken but herbs like marjoram, sage, thyme, rosemary, nutmeg, and black pepper.

And that’s it! The only other thing is completely optional but highly recommended: my vegan Parmesan “cheese” topping. It adds just the right cheesiness to this recipe to still keep it light and not just another mac n’ cheese recipe (since I’m apparently obsessed).

How to Make the Pasta in One Pot

So there’s a little trick to making the pasta in one pot and not having to strain any liquid out and I’m going to tell you what it is. Are you ready?

Use the same amount of liquid as you do pasta!

Wait, what?

We’re taught to boil our pasta in a lot of water and drain it. This is fine. But you don’t really need to.

When making one pot pasta, use a 1:1 ratio of pasta and liquid and it should work. I say should because under no circumstances can I make (or should I be making) guarantees.

I am not in your kitchen, I do not know what pasta you’re using, I have not tried them all. I’ve tried quite a few this way, but I have not tried them all.

My best advice is to try it and monitor it. If you notice that all the liquid has cooked away before the pasta is done, add a splash of water. But in every instance that I’ve tested this, it’s been totally fine in both broth and water.

Start With Onion and Garlic

But before we even get to the pasta, you should saute your onion and garlic first. Personally, I cook without oil. If you’d like to use oil, that’s fine, but my instructions are for the water saute method.

Heat a large, nonstick pot over medium high heat. When it’s hot, add your sliced onions to the pan.

Stir occasionally until they are really sticking to the pot. Then add a splash of water to the pan. I’m talking about 1-2 tablespoons max.

Stir some more, and keep repeating that process for about 3-4 minutes until the onions are somewhat translucent.

Then add your garlic and saute another minute, adding a little more water to keep the garlic from burning.

Now you can add your pasta and broth. Bring it to a boil and cook on medium high for 4 minutes.

Stir in your spinach and stir until it wilts.

Add your chickpeas and poultry seasoning. Turn the heat down to medium.

Stir well and cook 4-6 more minutes, until pasta is done. (Note that if you are using gluten-free or bean pasta, your pasta may take a few additional minutes to cook. Taste often).

Pour in the remaining ingredients: tahini or other creamy base, nondairy milk, juice of 1 lemon, salt, and black pepper.

Serve it up and sprinkle on a little vegan Parmesan if desired. Enjoy!

Want More Vegan 30 Minute Meals?

I make a lot of 30 minute meals (many of them one-pot) because I too am pressed for time in the evenings. Even though I don’t have kids but I do work full time and run a business full-time (I also do freelance writing, oy).

I get it.

So, if you’d like to add a few more quick vegan meals to your arsenal, check out some of the recipes below!

Creamy Mushroom Pasta (one pot)

Lemon Tahini Broccolini Pasta

Sheet Pan Roasted Vegetable Pasta

Double Chik’n Noodle Soup (one pot)

Avocado Pesto Pasta

Hearty Lentil Vegetable Stew (one pot)

“Fish” Tacos with Tangy Cabbage Slaw and Chipotle Aioli

Weeknight Tofu Vegetable Curry

As always, I hope you love this recipe!

Let me know in the comments below if you make it, tag me @Zardyplants on Instagram so I can see your beautiful recreations! If you tag me on IG, I will share your post in my stories :)

Also, one quick request: if you love how this recipe looks or tastes, please leave me a 5-star rating and a nice comment–ratings help more people find my recipes which helps me keep providing them! Thank you!

<3

Liz

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