An Italian acquaintance of mine frequently mentioned that “lemon pasta” was his favourite dish, so I eventually decided to make what I thought it was on one of those “idk wut 2 cook” days. It’s not really much like what he described when I asked him afterwards, but it’s one of my son’s favourite foods, so here’s the recipe
This is enough for 500 gr (18 oz) pasta, I recommend spaghetti. If you are avoiding carbs/wheat, feel free to replace with your favourite alternative.

Ingredients
- Juice of two lemons
- 1 red chilli or 1/2 tsp dried chilli (adjust to taste)
- 1 medium onion or 2 shallots
- 2 cloves garlic
- 60 ml / 1/4 cup good quality olive oil plus a little more for frying.
- 120 ml / 1/2 cup water
- 15 gr / 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 2 Tbspn dried parsley (or a handful fresh, chopped)
- 1 tsp dried mixed herbs such as thyme, basil etc. I uses a bruschetta herb mix.
- 50 gr / 1/3 cup pine nuts OR hemp seeds
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground /cracked black pepper
- Salt to taste

Method
- Roast the pine nuts in a heavy bottomed pan on medium heat until they are slightly browned. Shake the pan regularly or stir.
- Transfer to a different container and set aside.
- Now you can start boiling your pasta water.
- Heat a little olive oil in the same pan, chop your onions/s and sauté.
- Slice the garlic (no need to chop it smaller) and add to the pan with the onions.
- Chop your chilli and add to the onions when they are about ready (shiny and golden, ideally not going brown yet), and cook a little longer.
- Remove the pot from the heat.
- Squeeze your lemons and add the liquid to a blender or immersion blender friendly vessel. Add all the other ingredients, including the sautéed onions, garlic and chilli, EXCEPT the nuts.
- Blend until you have a relatively smooth sauce. If using an immersion blender it will be lumpy from the onions, but it doesn’t matter.
- Transfer back to the pot along with the pine nuts and leave on the lowest heat setting until your pasta is done.
- After draining the pasta, mix with the sauce and serve.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Please note that the decision to publish recipes is in the name of promoting veganism and helping save our planet. If you change the recipe, I request that you also make your work available free to others.