Macaroni in Red Pepper and walnut sauce

Back with another recipe with Red Bell Peppers !! 🙂

This was a dish waiting to be made since long. Hero of the dish is the Sauce. Got hold of some fresh organic Red bell peppers recently and made the sauce for this pasta. Roasted bell peppers and toasted nuts make a delicious sauce.

Starting with roasting the bell peppers directly on the stove. We get a good char on the skin, the peppers get cooked with the steam generated inside the vegetable as it cooks. The skin becomes soft enough to be torn with hands. On the side toast some nuts – handful of cashews and walnuts on a pan. I used few nuts as I wanted the dish to be light yet creamy. You could add more nuts to made the sauce more rich. Few garlic cloves, salt and pinch of nutritional yeast and blend to make a creamy sauce :). Keep it as simple as you can.

Choose your favorite vegetables to complement this pasta. I used yellow zucchini , red bell pepper and mushrooms. Again the simpler you keep it the more the flavor of the sauce will shine across. You could even skip the vegetables entirely if that what you want.

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat Macaroni (I used Bambino)
3 medium / 2 large red bell peppers
1/4 cup Cashew nuts
1/4 cup Walnuts
3-4 garlic cloves
1/3 cup diced zucchini
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1/3 cup dices red pepper
Pinch nutritional yeast (Optional)
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Handful chopped coriander
3-4 Tbs Olive oil

Steps

1. Cook the macaroni pasta with salt and few teaspoons of oil as per the instructions on the pasta pack. Wash the cooked pasta with cold water and keep aside.
2. Rub few drops of oil on the skin of red bell peppers and roast in on the stove. Keep rotating the pepper till you get a nice char all around. The vegetable becomes soft once its cooked.
3. Toast the nuts for few minutes on a pan stirring in-between till you get the aroma.
4. Chop the roasted pepper in pieces and grind it in a blender with the nuts,  garlic cloves and some salt.
5. In a pan heat 2 tsp of Olive oil. Coat the pan with the oil.
6. Add the diced vegetables into the pan and cook on low – medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Season the vegetables with some salt.
7. Add the sauce to the pan and continue cooking the vegetables in the sauce on low medium heat for another 2-3 minutes. Season the sauce with salt and pepper as per taste.
8. Add the macaroni pasta into the sauce and mix well to coat the pasta evenly with the sauce.
9. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve hot  :).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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