Super Purple Yam Mushroom Pasta

Oh My Gosh! This is so delicious. I was playing around with the idea of making a pasta sauce with these powerful purple sweet potatoes. They are super high in antioxidants and cancer fighting power. They have so many health benefits. 

I understand that this dish looks like a pile of goop. But it does NOT have the texture of that nor does it taste anything like a pile of goop. :) You have to try it. It's an interesting dish and something different you can make. When I first saw the purple color, I thought, hmm, it looks kinda gross. Not very appetizing. I mean, how many times in your life has your dinner been completely purple. LOL! 

If you can get passed the purple color of this dish, you will NOT be disappointed. I do recommend deciding in advance if you want a lot of sauce or a little bit of sauce. I poured all of the sauce on there and it may have been a little much for the amount of pasta that I had. You could also half the sauce recipe. I did make 1 full package of gluten free penne from Trader Joes. 

This is a great recipe for kiddos! It has hidden veggies and is a fun color, and tastes great! 

On top of it to give it some texture for the photo, I added some gluten free vegan Parmesan. There are quite a few mushrooms in the pasta, but you can't really see it in the photo. I should have saved some to put on top. Oh well! 

Here's the Recipe:


For the Mushrooms:

16 oz Baby Bella Mushrooms
1 Tbsp Balsamic Glaze or Balsamic Vinegar 
2 Tbsp Coconut Aminos

For  the Sauce:

1 purple yams, cut into coins (don't peel)
1 red onion, roughly chopped
1 cup raw cashews, soaked in boiling water for 20 minutes
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1-2 cups of vegetable broth (depending on how thick you want the sauce)
1 small can tomato paste (Trader Joe's)
Juice of 1 lemon
2-4 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp chili powder

Soak cashews in boiling water for 20 minutes, drain and set aside. 

Steam yams and onion for 20 minutes or until yams are soft.

Put all sauce ingredients into a high speed blender, blend until smooth adding veggie broth as needed for desired thickness. 

Chop up baby bella mushrooms into pieces and saute in coconut aminos and balsamic glaze. (If you decide to skip the mushrooms, add the coconut aminos and balsamic vinegar or glaze to the sauce.) 

Add Sauce to mushrooms to heat. 

In the meantime cook your pasta according to the package. Then drain, rinse, and add to the pan and mix it in until the sauce has fully covered the pasta. Feel free to add Vegan Parmesan on top if you wish, but it's not needed! 

Tips:

I always add extra garlic to everything! 

Yam sizes very.  I found a really tiny one at the store the other day. You can really decide for yourself how much yam to incorporate, more yams means a thicker sauce. The last time I made this, my sauce was really thick. It was still tasty, but I think I'm going to thin it out a bit more next time.

Add some sort of greens! I added spinach the last time I made it and it was phenomenal! Maybe not if you are feeding it to kiddos! But for adults! Totally worth it!  

Make sure if you skip the mushrooms that you add the coconut aminos and balsamic to your sauce. You won't regret it! 

Enjoy!