15 Minute Creamy Avocado Pasta
Creamy, thick, and rich with lots of garlic flavor and a hint of lemon, this is my newest favorite pasta dish. The avocado works wonderfully in this recipe to create a sauce so creamy and thick, you will think there is cream hiding in there.
Creamy, thick, and rich with lots of garlic flavor and a hint of lemon, this is my newest favorite pasta dish. The avocado works wonderfully in this recipe to create a sauce so creamy and thick, you will think there is cream hiding in there.
- freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium sized ripe avocado pitted
- 1/2 lemon, juiced + lemon zest to garnish
- 1-3 garlic cloves to taste (i used 3 and it wasâ super garlick but if you are not a big fan of garlic use 1 clove)
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt or to taste
- ~1/4 cup fresh basil (probably optional)
- 2 servings/6 oz of your choice of pasta (i used 3oz of spelt an
- Carbohydrate 0.032405 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 6.45163 g
- Fiber 0.01325 g
- Protein 0.005475 g
- Saturated Fat 0.891106 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (7g)
- Sodium 302.4634 mg
- Sugar 0.019155 g
- Trans Fat 0.174735999999999 g
- Calories 57 calories
Step-by-step
- Bring several cups of water to a boil in a medium sized pot. Add in your pasta, reduce heat to medium, and cook until Al Dente, about 8-10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make the sauce by placing the garlic cloves, lemon juice, and olive oil into a food processor. Process until smooth. Now add in the pitted avocado, basil, and salt. Process until smooth and creamy.
- When pasta is done cooking, drain and rinse in a strainer and place pasta into a large bowl. Pour on sauce and toss until fully combined. Garnish with lemon zest and black pepper. Serve immediately. Makes 2 servings.
- While the pasta is cooking away, prepare the cream sauce in a food processor. I used 3 cloves of garlic and it was quite garlicky, so if you are not a big fan of garlic I would suggest using 1-2 cloves.
- Strain and rinse the cooked pasta.
- Add the sauce and mix well.
- Garnish with lemon zest and freshly ground black pepper.
Raw garlic retains an aggressive pungency when processed directly into cold fats, unlike when it is gently sweated in a pan. Raw allicin compounds supply a sharp bite that requires careful calibration based on clove size; three large cloves will dominate the dish, whereas one yields a milder profile. Blending the garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil first breaks down the cellular walls of the alliums before the avocado enters the machine, ensuring a uniform emulsion rather than distinct chunks.
Avocado replaces dairy cream through sheer mechanical emulsification, relying on natural monounsaturated fats rather than thermal reduction. Processing the fruit with hot pasta directly will break the emulsion and cause the fats to separate into an oily slick. Boiling water must cook the pasta separately, and the noodles should cool slightly or be thoroughly drained before coating so the sauce maintains its velvety texture. Timing dictates success here: the food processor must run while the pasta boils, ensuring the sauce is ready the exact moment the noodles reach al dente.
Lemon juice prevents the polyphenol oxidase enzymes in the avocado from reacting with oxygen and turning the green paste brown. Zesting the citrus before juicing provides essential aromatic oils for the final garnish without extracting excess moisture that could thin the sauce. Leftovers fail structurally because chilled raw avocado oxidizes and alters in texture over storage windows exceeding zero hours, demanding immediate consumption.
