Meet your new favourite: Israeli couscous, cremini mushrooms and baby spinach coated with a rich, velvety tofu sauce. And it is vegan too!
This is the absolutely creamiest non-dairy pasta sauce I’ve ever tried, and it is all thanks to silken tofu. Even if you are not best friends with tofu, I promise you, you will love it.
The next superstar of this dish is a tiny pasta called Israeli couscous with a fantastic chewiness that perfectly balances the smoothness of the sauce.
Of course, besides searching for the best flavour combinations, I always ensure the dish is nutritionally well-balanced. This pasta with tofu sauce is no exception. It has a great amount of protein and complex carbohydrates, as well as a healthy amount of unsaturated fat.
And you need only 30 minutes to make it! Are you ready for it?
Which ingredients will you need to make this mushroom pasta with tofu sauce?
Olive oil
Onion
Garlic
Spices: cumin seeds, coriander seeds, ground sweet paprika, dried oregano
Tamari
Silken tofu
Israeli couscous
Cremini mushrooms
Baby spinach
Lemon
What is Israeli couscous?
Israeli couscous, ptitim, giant couscous, or pearl couscous are all different names for a perfectly round tiny pasta made from semolina or wheat flour and water. Pasta? You’ve heard it right!
Even though it was developed in Israel in the 1950s due to a shortage in rice supply, the idea of mixing semolina with water dates much further back in time. Semolina is a type of flour made from a variety of wheat called durum wheat, which is high in protein gluten. It is coarser than regular wheat flour and has a stronger yellow colour.
True couscous, the North African staple, is also made by mixing those two ingredients, but the balls are much smaller and irregular since they were traditionally hand-rolled.
So, Israeli and true couscous are based on the same ingredients. Still, because of the difference in size, they taste and cook differently.
Israeli couscous has always been machine-made. A dry mixture is obtained by adding water to the flour. When pushed through a special extruder, it is transformed into spherical, uniform balls. The balls are then toasted in the oven to develop a deeper colour and nuttier flavour and, finally, dried.
How to cook Israeli couscous?
Israeli couscous is a highly versatile ingredient that can work perfectly as a base for a salad, a risotto or a pasta dish. To fit the use perfectly, you can cook it in a number of different ways, but today I will mention only two of them.
How to cook Israeli couscous like pasta
The easiest way to cook Israeli couscous is like you would cook any other pasta. Toss it into a good amount of boiling water and cook for 8-10 minutes, depending on the desired texture. Drain it and use it ideally in a salad recipe. Israeli couscous has a much better taste and pleasantly chewy texture when cooked al dente, so, closer to those 8 minutes. The only difference is that when cooking pasta, you want the water to be vigorously boiling all throughout. Still, with Israeli couscous, a low simmer works much better.
How to cook Israeli couscous like a grain
If you want your Israeli couscous to have more of a porridge like-texture, cook it in water using a ratio of water to couscous of 1,5:1. Bring the water to a boil, add couscous and cook it on a low simmer for 8 minutes. The couscous will absorb all the water, resulting in a creamy delicacy.
How to cook Israeli couscous for this recipe
We’ll use the second method for cooking couscous for this recipe but slightly modified.
Since couscous will be coated with an extremely flavourful creamy silken tofu pasta sauce, cooking it only in plain water would be a shame. For that reason, the couscous will be partially cooked and then added to the sauce to finish cooking and absorb some of those amazing flavours.
Use a ratio of water to couscous of 1:1. Bring the water to a boil and when it comes to a boil, lightly salt it. Stir in the couscous and cook it on a low simmer for 5 minutes. After those 5 minutes, all the water should be absorbed. Transfer the couscous to the prepared sauce and cook for another 3 minutes in the sauce.
What if I don’t have Israeli couscous?
If you don’t have Israeli couscous, the good news is, there is plenty of other options! Use any other type of pasta, from fusilli and macaroni to spaghetti and so on. You can apply the same cooking method: partially cook pasta and add to the sauce for the last few minutes of cooking. It will absorb much more flavour while, at the same time, helping thicken the sauce.
What is silken tofu?
Tofu is the vegan edition of cheese. The soy milk is coagulated, and the developed soy curdles are pressed into a solid white block. The more pressed, the firmer it becomes.
Silken tofu (the Japanese-style tofu) is the softest of them all, with the highest water content. It has a delicate texture that crumbles underneath your fingers, maybe the closest to fresh cottage cheese. It has a mild, slightly cheesy flavour that will hardly overpower any other ingredient. That is why it is ideal for making desserts, smoothies, dips, pasta fillings or sauces, like in the case of this recipe.
How to make this tofu pasta sauce?
To make this tofu pasta sauce, you will need (apart from silken tofu): onions, garlic, tamari and a mix of spices (more about it in a moment).
This sauce is unbelievably creamy, thanks to the silken tofu. Thanks to the rest of the ingredients, it is super flavourful too. It is a beautiful balance of sweet, savoury and umami.
Cook onion dice in a pan until soft and sweet, which will take about 5 minutes if the onion is finely diced. Add the finely chopped garlic and cook until fragrant, approx 2 minutes.
Stir in the spice mix and cook for another minute. Deglaze the pan with tamari sauce and transfer the cooked mixture to the hand blender. Use a spatula not to leave anything behind.
Then add silken tofu in and blend for 2-3 minutes until your sauce is creamy and no bigger pieces are left behind.
How do I make the spice mix for the tofu pasta sauce?
This spice mix contains cumin and coriander seeds, ground sweet paprika and dried oregano.
Even though you can find cumin and coriander in their ground form, I prefer to use them in the form of seeds.
When stored, ground spices lose their aromas quicker than when in the form of seeds because of a much bigger surface in contact with the air. Having them freshly toasted and ground will give a superior taste to any dish. Toasting them will help pull out all their fragrant aromas and allow them to combine better with the rest of the ingredients.
To toast your seeds:
- Place a skillet pan over medium heat.
- Add the cumin and coriander seeds and gently heat them until they start releasing fragrant aromas.
- Stir them constantly to prevent them from burning.
Transfer them to a mortar and leave them to cool down slightly. Turn them into a powder using a pestle, add the sweet ground paprika and dried oregano and continue grinding until all the spices are evenly combined.
Which mushroom variety works best for this pasta with tofu sauce recipe?
For this dish, I’m using cremini mushrooms. I’ve picked them for their accessibility, delicate earthy flavour and meaty texture that pairs perfectly with the chewy couscous texture. Did you know that cremini mushrooms are the same variety of mushrooms as the white and Portobello mushrooms but of different maturity stages? White ones are the youngest, while the Portobello are the oldest of the three.
So, of course, those two can be an excellent alternative to creminis. Still, any other variety can work perfectly, as well. Let me give you a few other ideas: oyster, shiitake, ceps, etc.
Other pasta dishes you might like:
Creamy tofu pasta with tahini sauce
