Cooking with Trevor | Dairy-Free Alfredo

Now I'm going to do a dairy free Alfredo

For this dish we are going to use the same brand of Gogo quinoa pasta, but we're using

kind of a red and white quinoa mix here of a little what we call fusilli

So it's almost like penne, but it's got a little bit of a twist to it

We'll also be using some sliced red onion. And I'm just in the process of cleaning my mini mushrooms that are going to go into that dish

So the reason I like the minis is because we have to do minimal chopping if we're in a hurry

When mushrooms are harvested, they are cleaned, but there is sometimes a little bit of residual

dirt that is left on them from their growing stage. And you just want to remove that

The worst thing you can do to a raw mushroom is soak them and submerge them in water because

characteristically mushrooms are like a sponge. You will need between six and eight mini button mushrooms for this dish depending on size

And they must all be cleaned. For those mushrooms, all we're going to do is make two cuts

We're going to cut the mushroom in half, and then we're going to cut the mushroom in half one more time to create these little kind of neat, funky mushroom quarters

And what that's going to do is it's going to give us the appeal of meat from the umami

flavor in the mushrooms without having to add something like chicken or shrimp or beef

to the pasta dish. Very important here that you're taking your time and cutting the mushrooms all the same size

If we cut the mushrooms different sizes, they're going to cook at different rates and it's going to offer varying textures in our pasta

And that's something we want to avoid. Also for this dish, we're going to go back to our trusty spinach one more time and our

mini tomatoes fresh from the season. We're just going to take our cherry tomatoes and we're going to just slice them in half

We need one more clove of garlic using our trusty microplane to mince one more time

For this dish today, in order to keep it non-dairy, we're working with a new product I like to

use called Ripple. The interesting thing about this product is it's actually a new technique that allows

the extraction of milk from peas. And the good part about using the milk from peas is that you don't get that characteristically

chalky flavor that you might find in a soy-based beverage or a nut-based beverage

So what we're going to get here is that silky appeal of using cream, but we're actually

using a non-dairy milk product. We're going to use two cups. The reason we need so much is because we're actually going to use this milk to cook the pasta

We're going to make everything all in one pot. And what that's going to do is allow the starch of the pasta to thicken our sauce

So to start this dish, we're going to take our frying pan. We're going to go to a medium heat

Our extra virgin olive oil goes into the pan. For this dish, we need about two tablespoons

The difference in this pasta is we're not going to add the garlic right away to flavor our oil

We want the fresh flavors of the garlic to penetrate the sauce

So we're going to add that after we saute our vegetables. So once our oil starts to bubble, like you can see here, it's bubbling but it's not smoking

and it's coating the pan very nicely. We're going to add in our red onions, okay

In the pan they go. And we just want to break up those onions and start getting them to saute

If you notice, the onions are starting to fry rather than saute

Just back the heat off a little bit. Once the onions kind of start to lose their bright purple color and start to go see-through

we're going to take our beautiful quartered mushrooms and we're going to add those in

You're going to notice as you cook the mushrooms, they're going to release a liquid

As soon as that liquid is released, that's when we're going to add our initial layer of seasoning

If we were to add salt right now to these mushrooms, all we would do is draw out the moisture

What we want is the heat to start drawing out that liquid in those mushrooms

So that way we season the liquid that comes out that can then flavor our sauce

And if you're brave, you can give it a couple tosses or you can use your wooden spoon and

just stir it around. You just want everything to saute nicely and cook without getting that caramelized, burnt

flavor to it. We're starting to get a little more moisture come out of our mushrooms here

That is the perfect time to add our first round of salt, just a little bit, and pepper

I'm generous with seasoning because I like the balance that it gives and I don't like

to add seasoning at the end of my dish. Seasoning is completely up to you

You put as much or as little salt and pepper in as you want and let the vegetables do the work

So a general rule here, I want to continue when I can start to smell the onions

I can smell the onions starting to take on that sweeter aroma, which lets me know that

that sharp onion flavor, that raw onion flavor, has been cooked out of the onions and now

they're starting to sweeten up. That's when we want to add the remainder of our ingredients

So we're just going to take our tomatoes. Just let them all get happy together

Add in our spinach. Just let that gently wilt for a second

And as you can see, you've already got some amazing, beautiful flavors happening in here

You've got the sweetness of the onion, the umami of the mushroom, you've got that acidic

bite from the tomatoes, and you've got that really fresh saltiness from the spinach coming through

Once all those get happy together in the pan and their flavors start to get together, we're

going to take our quinoa pasta and we're just going to add it right in

Let that get coated with oil, let it get coated with all those flavors

Like we said before, we only have one chance to season our pasta

We need to season it now before we add the milk so that the flavors penetrate the pasta

So just quickly coating that, making sure all the pastas have a little bit of a translucent

oil coating in there. That lets you know that all the flavors of those vegetables captured in that oil are

giving that pasta a nice flavor to start with. We're now going to take our garlic and add it in

Okay, because we want the freshness of the garlic in this dish

That's what characteristically makes Alfredo so good, is that fresh garlic flavor

Then we're going to take our ripple, and we're going to reduce that to a low simmer

And we're going to let the milk gently cook the pasta. And as the pasta cooks, we're drawing out that starch to help thicken the sauce, which

is what we would do characteristically if we were using cream. We're going to leave that to simmer for 15 to 20 minutes

So we're back. It's about 15 minutes later. You've noticed all the sauce has nicely reduced and coated itself around those noodles

The tomatoes have started to bust up and add their flavor into the sauce. The spinach is staying bright green, and those mushrooms are giving it that thick umami flavor

Before we go to the plate, there's two things I want to do to liven this dish back up

What I want to do is add an herb we call chives. Chives are a very, very, very fragrant, very delicate herb that have a very sophisticated

onion flavor to them. So all I want to do is just give them a nice quick chop, always discarding the ends and

trying your best to carefully cut those as thin as possible. At this point, we're going to turn our pasta off

Everything has come together really well. That pasta is cooked to a perfect al dente

We're removing that from the heat. We're just going to add our final layer of salt just to round out those flavors and just

a pinch of pepper. Then we're going to add in those chives that we just chopped at the very last second so

they stay bright and vibrant green and their fragrance penetrates the entire dish

Okay, we're just going to give that kind of a toss around

We're just going to take that pasta. We're going to spoon it into our vessel

Noticing here with this pasta, as with the rest of the pastas we did today, nothing is

swimming in sauce. What we have is just a nice coating of sauce on the outside of the pasta

When we do the work to cook pasta properly, whether it's gluten-free, whether it's regular

pasta, we want it to be the star. So why are we going to drown it in tons and tons of extra sauce

We want that texture of the pasta to come through, that flavor of the sauce to come

through, but we don't want it swimming in sauce. There you have it, non-dairy Alfredo with mushrooms, spinach, and spring tomatoes, and

gogo quinoa pasta. Enjoy