Vegan Cream Cheese and Spinach Stuffed Pasta

Vegan Cream Cheese and Spinach Stuffed Pasta

This recipe started out as actual stuffed pasta, but I got impatient and ended up just tearing apart the tubes to make a kind of lasagna...if you can find giant pasta shells, that would be much quicker and easier!  Regardless of what you do with this pasta filling, its going to be delicious, though - creamy, simple, and very comforting.  

Total time: 25 minutes

Serves: 4 as a main course

Ingredients for the filling:

1 block silken tofu

3/4 tub vegan cream cheese

4 cups (200g) fresh spinach

1 tablespoon vegan green pesto

1/2 cup (30g) nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 onion

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil

500g Pasta

Ingredients for the sauce:

1 can of tomatoes

1/2 onion

1 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp boullion powder

salt and pepper, to taste

First, boil the pasta according to the directions on the packet, and when it is al dente, drain and rinse in cool water, then set aside.

Preheat the oven to 180/C/375F.  

Slice the onion and sauté in olive oil until golden brown - put half in the blender for the filling and half in a saucepan for the sauce.  

Next, start the sauce - add all the ingredients to a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Simmer on low heat for 5 minutes, then blend until smooth.

While the sauce is simmering, make the filling by putting all the ingredients in a blender and blending until smooth and fully combined.  Taste for salt and pepper!

Final assembly - fill the pasta with dollops of filling, pour the sauce over the top and bake for 5-10 minutes (all we're really doing here is re-warming the pasta).