Nutty spinach pasta

What was your biggest struggle when you first started your vegan journey? Missing cheese? Worrying about your protein levels? Just knowing what to cook?

I’m lucky that I’m not a big fan of dairy and egg, so these wouldn’t be a significant loss for me if I had to give them up.

However, in my first year became vegetarianism,I suffered with low B12 and vitamin D, which made me tired and weak and meant I got ill very often. I went on the internet, did some research and discovered nutritional yeast (with B12). Since then, it became one of my favourite ingredients.

You can simply sprinkle it over finished dishes like parmesan, from roast potatoes to salad, or add it into a homemade pesto sauce or soup. It really gives that interesting plant-based nutty and cheese-like flavour – Which makes these little flakes a great cheese replacement in the vegan world. You can even make vegan cheese out of it!

Today I am going to share another delicious pasta dish with nutritional yeast, a very nutty and cheesy spinach pasta.

You can use full bunch spinach(wash and roughly chopped) or baby spinach.

Boil the penne in salted water. For timing follow the instructions on the pasta packaging. Rinse it with ice-cold water and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large, non-stick frying pan, add the minced garlic and fry for 2-3 minutes until the garlic turns slightly golden in colour.

Add the spinach and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring frequently.

Drop in the penne and basil and season with salt, nutritional yeast, pepper and lemon juice, stir well and cook for a further 2 minutes.

My stove is not very powerful so the pasta is already quite moist due to the water that sweat out from the spinach. If you have a powerful stove, you may add a dash of water or plant milk as well – this will help to spread the seasoning evenly.

Sprinkle with the pine nuts and toss in the pan until well combined. Serve warm!

This dish is so basic that you can get all the ingredients easily around the world, plus it is quick and effortless to cook. It is packed with protein (20g per serve ) Vitamin A, C, B, Iron and Calcium – a perfect dish to add to your every day meal rotation.

This recipe was created for Veahero, a cool new (free!) meal planning platform for vegans and vegetarians.

If you have followed and made this recipe, let me know! Leave a comment and take a picture, tagging it with #k33_kitchen and share it on Instagram! I’d be very excited to see what you come up with. Cheers, hope you enjoy my recipes!