Weeknight Creamy Mushroom Pasta

This simple and healthy creamy mushroom pasta recipe is perfect for a weeknight dinner. There’s no cream, naturally vegan, and packed with garlic & herbs! Pairs wonderfully with a side salad and no knead overnight artisan bread.

When I’m in a busy season of life (like right now), my favorite recipes are the ones that cook fast but taste slow.

Like maple glazed pork chops. They taste like they’ve been slowly braising for hours, but they cook in under 10 minutes!

Or Instant Pot honey garlic chicken. A quick stir of pantry staples + chicken means dinner will be ready in under 30 minutes and you don’t even have to be in the kitchen!! (I recommend making roasted broccoli and pulling a bag of Instant Pot brown rice from the freezer to go with the chicken.)

Most recently though, we’ve fallen in love with weeknight mushroom pasta… It tastes like you’ve gone out to a restaurant! But all you’ve really done is filled two pots, whizzed a sauce in the blender, set a timer, and walked away…

Creamy Mushroom Pasta

Why should you make this creamy pasta with mushrooms? Allow me to elaborate.

• It’s cheap. Pasta is one of the cheapest grains you’ll find in the store. Whole wheat pasta often goes on sale for about $1 per pound, but I’ve seen it marked down to 50¢ per pound before!
• It’s easy. Literally, boil pasta in one pot, let mushrooms cook in another, set the timer on the pasta, and go do something else. Like helping the kids with their homework or re-running the washing machine (again) because you forgot to move the clothes to the dryer. Really, go be productive. Don’t stand over the stove for this dinner!
• It’s made with pantry staples. Aside from the mushrooms (which keep in my fridge for at least a week), everything comes from the pantry. That means if you need to pause your meal plan because you have too many leftovers in the fridge, or if for whatever reason your meal plan falls apart, this is something you can make in a pinch.
• The vegetables are built in! Sometimes I focus so much on the main portion of the meal that I forget about the side dishes. In this case, the vegetables are built into the main dish – WIN!

More reasons..

• It’s fast. We’re talking about 20 minutes here from start to finish.
• Minimal dishes. Two pots and a blender jar. And one of those pots is for boiling the pasta, which you and I both know barely even counts as a “dish.”
• It’s meatless. We both know that cutting back on meat consumption saves money on the grocery budget. We’ve cut back on the total amount of meat we eat so that we can afford higher quality cuts of meat (that we get delivered monthly from Butcher Box, you can read more on that here). That means putting a few meatless dinners on the meal plan each week.
• You don’t feel like it’s meatless. Which is pretty stinkin’ amazing! The mushrooms are big and chewy and they make you feel like you’re chewing something worthy (unlike a plate of iceberg lettuce!). We leave the table full and satisfied without even thinking that we didn’t eat meat.
• It’s vegan. We aren’t, but is totally cool if you’re trying to eat less meat and more vegetables and less oil and more healthy fats and all that good stuff… which most of us are in one way or another, right?

Here’s What You Need for Mushroom Cream Pasta

• Mushrooms (I use brown cremini)
• Pasta (any variety)
• Olive oil
• Onion
• Garlic
• Dried thyme + dried sage
• Cashews
• Water
• Pepper

A Note on the Pasta

Since we’ve switched to einkorn AND/OR gluten-free grains, we often use brown rice pasta since it’s the most affordable. I’m also quickly learning that not all brown rice pasta is the same!

We’ve tried brown rice pasta from Trader Joe’s, ALDI, and Walmart. So far, ALDI ranks the lowest. It definitely could have been the recipe I tried, but we felt like the noodles broke easily and then it just made a mushy mess… which no one wanted to eat, including me.

The Tinkyada brand is what I’ve found at Walmart and so far, it’s held up really well!

I *think* we like the brown rice pasta from Trader Joe’s as well… at least it didn’t stand out to us as “not good” as the ALDI brand did!

How to Make Creamy Mushroom Pasta

Here are the simple instructions on how to make weeknight mushroom pasta:

Step 1. Cook pasta according to package directions.

Step 2. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large skillet OR a dutch oven over medium heat. Add onions, garlic, thyme, and sage.

Step 3. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms have cooked down by half. Add additional olive oil as necessary.

Step 4. When the pasta and mushrooms are done, toss the cashews, water, and pepper in a blender (I have this Blendtec) and blend until the sauce is creamy.

Place in an airtight container for up to three days.

Vegan Mushroom Pasta FAQs

Side Suggestions

• This mushroom pasta would be SO GOOD with no-knead overnight artisan bread to sop up the extra juices and sauce on your plate.
• Or rosemary olive oil flatbread… which would require you to stand at the stove, but those fluffy squares of salted dough would be WORTH EVERY SECOND!

More Easy Pasta Dishes

• Vegetable Pasta Primavera
• Cheesy Lentil Pasta
• Master Pasta Salad Recipe
• Skillet Veggie Pizza Pasta