A quick and simple vegan sun-dried tomato pasta sauce that packs all the punches in terms of flavour. Spiced with chipotle chillies, loaded with veggies and with a crunchy protein hit from the walnuts this sauce is a cut above.
What’s your favourite pasta sauce? For years I’ve been blending the hell out of my pasta sauces just to get my picky eating kids to eat them. One day I discovered that putting some chopped sun-dried tomatoes into the sauce made it taste about 150 times better and they rapidly became my new favourite ingredient.
If you haven’t added sun-dried tomatoes to your pasta sauce yet then now is the time to start. They are simply lovely ripe tomatoes that have been dried for ages in the sun, causing them to lose most of the water. They are usually sold jarred in olive oil and the oil that they’re stored in has a lovely taste as well – I’d suggest adding a little of this to your sauce as well or using it to cook with or on salad leaves when the jar is empty.
I love the addition of the crumbled walnuts here. Their crunchiness and taste distracts me from missing having cheese with my pasta and they are a great source of protein for vegans. I’m not a full time vegan but I am doing Veganuary this year – that is I’m eating vegan for the month of January – and I do eat vegan food most of the time these days. If you’re looking for vegan inspiration then take a look at these 31 vegan recipes I’ve pulled together for metro.co.uk.
Sun-dried tomato pasta sauce with walnuts and chipotle
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic crushed
- 1 medium carrot peeled and grated
- 1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
- 1/2 tsp chipotle chilli flakes or adjust to taste
- 40 g walnuts crumbled
- 1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
- Salt to taste
Instructions
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Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over a medium-high heat.
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Add the onion, stir then reduce the heat to low and cover. Sweat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then remove the lid.
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Now add the crushed garlic and continue frying for a further minute.
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Next put the grated carrot, chopped tomatoes and chilli flakes into the pan and stir well.
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Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for ten minutes.
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Put the walnuts into the pan and allow to warm through.
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Finally add the chopped parsley and season with salt to taste.
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Serve with the pasta of your choice.
Pin sun-dried tomato pasta sauce with walnuts and chipotle for later:
I’ve linked this post up to Cook Blog Share:
This sounds lovely – I wouldn’t have thought of putting walnuts in myself #cookblogshare
Thanks Louise – they really do work well.
This looks delicious, I love chipotle in anything!
It’s just so delicious isn’t it!
Lovely idea for pasta sauce Mandy! I use sun dried tomatoes a lot as love their intense flavour but as far as nuts go I have only added pine nuts to pasta before never walnuts. Really intrigued to try them now. x
I’d love to hear what you think Jo x
I think sundried tomatoes are brilliant in pasta and I love the crumbled walnut topping. It makes a great alternative when you can’t eat cheese.
Thanks Corina – the walnuts really make it special I think.
Oooh Mandy, I love the addition of the walnuts, this is something I must try! Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x
Thanks Kirsty – I love adding nuts to pasta, especially if I’m not using cheese x
Yes please! This looks awesome. Very much my kind of meal…and I totally agree about adding in sundried tomatoes into this kind of recipe…it works so well, to give an extra depth of flavour….and chipoltle too – YUM!! And do I spy you have gone for WPRM?? How are you finding it? Eb x
Thanks so much for commenting Eb. I love sundried tomatoes too – such a delicious flavour. WPRM is fine – so far doesn’t seem hugely different to what I was using on the old site though tbh. And this is the free version so not with the ratings, but the other ratings plug in seems to be working now. x