This quick and easy vegan roasted red pepper mac and cheese is one of my favorite weeknight comfort foods. The savory and creamy sauce is made with roasted red peppers, cashews, garlic, nutritional yeast, and white miso. Preparing the mac and cheese is as easy as blending the sauce and pouring it over cooked pasta! Best of all, you have the option of preparing the sauce in advance, so that you can have a crowd-pleasing dinner on the table in no time.
I don’t tend to equate comfort food with convenience or ease.
A lot of my own favorite comfort foods—baked casseroles, enchiladas, lasagna, lentil loaf, veggie pot pie—involve a lot of prep work and long cooking times.
I don’t mind this. In some ways, part of the joy of a comfort food meal is knowing that love and care were poured into its preparation.
Still, it’s always a joy when something that’s quintessential comfort food, a dish that takes us right back to childhood, and to feeling cared for, also happens to be extremely easy.
That’s the deal with this vegan roasted red pepper mac and cheese.
In spite of being creamy and comforting, it’s also really fast, especially if you prepare your roasted peppers in advance or use the store-bought kind.
From that point forward, the dish is as simple as blending a sauce, boiling some pasta, and mixing everything together.
My choice to add roasted peppers to this dish was driven by the fact that I tend to have them around a lot during the summer.
I make big batches—6 or so roasted peppers at a time—and store them in the fridge for quick and easy use.
I love their flavor (much more than I love the taste or texture of raw peppers), and I love how easily they can be blended into dressings, hummus, or my favorite homemade sunflower seed romesco.
Red peppers also add a ton of concentrated pepper flavor to salads, grain dishes, and all sorts of pasta, this one included.
Don’t have roasted peppers at home? Don’t worry. The store-bought variety will work perfectly here, too. Whatever you don’t use can stay in the jar and be used for other recipes throughout the week.
As you can see, I served my bowl with some hemp seeds for a touch of extra protein and texture, along with fresh thyme sprigs and some extra roasted bell pepper strips.
You could also pile the pasta high with my hemp seed “parmesan,”, fold in some extra roasted veggies or chickpeas, or top the mac with some of your favorite vegan meaty crumbles, soy curls, or my lemon pepper tempeh cubes.
There’s plenty of room to get creative!
And here’s the recipe.
Making this dish has me thinking about other ways to flavor the sauce; I’m guessing that roasted tomatoes would be a wonderful alternative to the roasted peppers. Also, it’s fine to serve the dish with spaghetti or linguine or penne instead of the macaroni, and call it creamy red pepper pasta instead.
There are some traditional comfort food dishes that I’ve veganized simply because I’m curious about how they’d turn out, or because I think that friends, family, or loved ones will enjoy them. Mac n’ cheese is a lot more personal for me–it’s more than an culinary idea, if that makes sense. It was one of my favorite meals growing up, and my Mom made it a lot, right out of that famous blue and and orange box.
Mac n’ cheese still brings up childhood memories for me, which may be why I make it more regularly and happily than a lot of other nostalgic dishes. The fact that my favorite vegan mac n’ cheese recipes are almost as easy as preparing the store-bought stuff is a very nice added bonus. Hope you’ll enjoy this recipe, too, especially while peppers are still bright and in season!
xo
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This is truly the best sauce I have found in my endless recipe search. My husband and I have been making this weekly to eat on everything – we love it in grain bowls and for dipping! Thank you for this!
I’m so happy that you love the sauce, Cat! And I love that you use it as a sauce, outside of the pasta recipe. Thanks for sharing.
oh this is cool I’ve never tried the vegan option.
Ever since I saw your vegan mac n cheese from your cookbook and also on Jessie’s blog, it’s been on my list to try and now I want this red pepper version too. I’m with you- I love roasted peppers and it adds such a nice color to this pasta!
This looks so good, Gena! I have never tried vegan mac’n’cheese before but it looks amazing. Will give this a try for sure ๐
aw no way! i went to make vegan mac yesterday with roasted red peppers, but went o the fridge and we were out! ๐
it still turned out great though, my dad had seconds!
also, i love your hempsian! i need to make another batch to keep on hand ๐
That’s funny, I also think of more complicated prep when it comes to comfort food. But you’re right that a super easy comforting meal has a lot of appeal too – I wish I had time to make vegan pot pies every day but it’s just not going to happen. I love the added roasted peppers to your mac and cheese, such a great twist!
This looks so delicious <3
Where is the beautiful plate from?
Best
Michaela
Michaelablog
Bloglovin’
Ooh, this looks delicious! I’ll have to try it with roasted tomatoes. I’ve always thought tomatoes ought to go perfectly with mac and cheese, but never been able to get it quite right before; I think roasting them just might be the answer!
Yum YUM. This looks great! I love roasted red peppers too. ๐ xo
Mac and cheese is childhood defined! I guess this is a fancier “adult” version of my favorite way to top it…with ketchup ๐ So roasted red peppers is a step up! Haha!