beans, cashews, fermented, gut health, individuals, miso paste, no added oil, nutritional yeast, pasta, plant-based, Recipe, spinach, sunflower seeds, tempeh, whole food plant-based

Spinach pasta sauce with tempeh

Sneaky spinach

We take great pride in camouflaging some less desirable ingredients and diversifying your nutrient intake. Here is one that will surely become a staple in your home.

Choice of pasta

We always recommend choosing a whole grain pasta, but if you would like to make your dish more fun with other possibilities, feel free to do so, like we did here with some vegan i.e. plant-based ravioli.

Foods are valued depending on what you compare them to

What makes this pasta dish a little bit more health promoting that the usual recipes?

First of all it is plant-based, which inherently makes it a far more nutritious choice (more on this in other posts).

Second of all we tweaked the ingredients a bit to make it more nutrient dense.

Improvements made:

  • adding fermented ingredients for better gut health
  • eliminating adding oil to our recipe, drastically reduces the fat content (heart health)
  • introducing more protein with adding beans and tempeh
  • using whole food ingredients
  • high fiber content
  • adding vinegar and lemon to stimulate proper excretion of digestive juices in the stomach
  • higher vitamin B content because of nutritional yeast
  • health promoting whole food fat source from cashews and sunflower seeds

Very important tip to balancing your meals

Balancing your meals to make them more nutrient dense, help with satiety, and fiber intake.

SOUP

Soup to begin your meal is always an improvement in water, fiber, and nutrient intake. Make any soup you like and help with satiety before you dig into the pizza, so you can fully enjoy every bite.

SALAD

A great salad can balance out any meal. In our case we add it for variety of nutrients, and to improve the fiber content of the meal. We suggest an abundant green salad with all the fun veggies you like to add color and taste.

If you don’t want it to take away from your pizza experience – just eat it before hand, after the soup or instead of it.

Be creative

Explore your palate and all the ways you can make this dish more balanced, nutritious and delicious. Try introducing more ingredients like vegetables, legumes, seeds, nuts, herbs.

Spinach pasta sauce with tempeh topping

Prep Time: 30 Minutes
Cooking Time: 10 Minutes
Total time: 40 Minutes
Servings: 2-4 People

Ingredients

spinach sauce
  • 4 large fists of fresh spinach*
  • 100g cashews
  • 50 g sunflower seeds
  • 200 g canned white beans**
  • 1 tablespoon mustard
  • 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons miso paste
  • 1 tablespoon vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons soya sauce
  • salt to taste
pasta
  • cook your pasta of choice according to the instructions
tempeh and marinade***
  • 100 g tempeh
  • 2 tablespoons soya sauce
  • agave syrup or other sweetener of choice to taste
  • pinch of ground ginger
  • water if necessary

Instructions

1. To a large pot add 1 Liter of water, the spinach, cashews and sunflower seeds and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 min, or until soft.
2. Cook the pasta in a separate pot and save the pasta water.
3. Transfer the spinach, cashews and sesame seeds and 3 tablespoons of the pasta water to the blender and blend. Add pasta water as necessary.
4. When blended add the rest of the ingredients.
5. Add the tempeh and the marinade to a non stick pot and cook until golden and all the liquid has evaporated.
6. Add the toppings, spread them equally and if so inspired add more nutritious ingredients.
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*if you can't get it fresh, swap with a couple cubes of frozen spinach

**preferably in a glass jar

***marinate first and let sit as you prepare the rest, then cook in a non stick pot