Pasta with Vodka Sauce
Ingredients
Tomato Sauce:
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 medium carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 1 stalk of celery, roughly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic
- 28 ounces crushed tomatoes
- 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
- 6 fresh basil leaves
- 2 dry bay leaves
- 1/2 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon salt plus more if needed
- 1/2 cup water to thin as needed/desired
- 2 Tablespoons plain vodka
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
Hemp Cream:
- 1/4 cup hemp seeds
- 1 cup water
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large pot.
- Add diced onions, carrot, and celery. Saute until onion is well browned and translucent.
- Add garlic and lightly brown.
- Add crushed tomatoes and tomato paste, basil leaves, oregano, salt and pepper.
- Cover and simmer on low heat for 20 minutes, until carrots are soft and easily pierced with a fork. (This may take longer than 20 minutes, depending on how large your carrot pieces are.)
- In the meantime prepare the cream sauce. Place all cream sauce ingredients in a high speed blender and blend until smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Pour the cream through a cheesecloth or nut milk bag to remove any grittiness from the seeds. Set aside while the marinara sauce simmers.
- Turn off heat on the marinara sauce and add the hemp cream.
- Using an immersion blender, blend the sauce completely. Alternately, carefully transfer to a blender (in batches depending on blender size) to blend and then return the sauce to the pot.
- I like to add about 1/2 cup of hot water to thin out the sauce, but if you like a chunkier sauce you can omit this.
- Whisk in the vodka and sugar, and return the sauce to simmer for 10 + minutes.
- Serve over pasta! This makes enough sauce for about two pounds of pasta—leftover sauce can be frozen for a future meal!
Notes
I love serving this with Bucatini pasta—it's a straw shaped long pasta. Its extra thickness lends itself to the rich sauce!