How about a multi-purpose sauce that also doubles as a soup, tastes bomb, and basically can use almost any veggie you have on hand?? Boom. Now you have pasta sauce, pizza sauce, whatever you want it to be sauce.
And you can sneak in more servings of veggies for the kiddos or picky eaters in your life.
Make a big batch, portion out into smaller containers to freeze what you won’t use within the week, and have easy meals ready to go in the future!
Soup or Veggie Sauce
Yield approximately 2 quarts (1/2 gallon)
INGREDIENTS
4 red potato, sliced
1/2 sweet yellow onion, peeled and
sliced
6 carrots, peeled and sliced
4 medium tomatoes, quartered
1 head cauliflower, florets
2 zucchini, sliced
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/2 - 1 cup cashews - soaked over night, strained, and rinsed (the more you use, the creamier)
1 cup filtered water to soak cashews
1 tbsp salt (I use pink fine ground Himalayan)
1/2 tsp fine ground black pepper
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp dried oregano
4 1/2 cups filtered water or vegetable (or mushroom) broth
Notes:
Can really add any veggies, but potato and tomato are very helpful for the texture + flavor. I added a broccoli stem to this batch.
You can also add other herbs like basil (dried or fresh) and roasted garlic
Save your veggie scraps (carrot ends + peels, tomato ends, onion skins, etc.) to make veggie broth! I usually have a container or bag in the freezer that I just add to over time. When it’s full, make a batch of broth :)
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F
On a couple lightly oiled (I use olive oil) baking sheet pans lay out your veggies (potato, carrot, onion, tomato, cauliflower, zucchini). Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle some salt and pepper over top. Tip: I put potato and carrot on one and the rest on another, as they have slightly different roasting times.
Roast veggies. Harder veggies like potato + carrot can roast for about 30-40 minutes. Softer veggies for 20-30 minutes.
Blend cashews with 3 cups of water until smooth.
Add roasted veggies, cashew creme, and all remaining ingredients to a large sauce pot and cook for 10-20 minutes.
Blend in portions until smooth. I use a measuring cup to scoop out into blender and have another pot to pour finished sauce into. Stir and adjust seasoning if desired.
Use immediately as a soup or sauce however you’d like!
Store in a sealed container in the fridge for about 5-7 days
Freezes well! I like to freeze in smaller portions I can easily pull and defrost only what I need as I go.