Vegan Lemon Pasta With Pine Nuts and Broccoli Recipe

Pasta is always welcome. It's infinitely adaptable, always delicious, and a trustworthy option - especially on a super busy weeknight. If you're vegan, looking to eschew animal products, or just trying to skip meat for a night—try this delicious, entirely vegan recipe. If you think that you have to give up pasta as a vegan ... you are mistaken. It also doesn't hurt that it comes together in almost no time at all. You'll be stunned by how quickly you can get dinner on the table with this recipe.

This pasta is super flavorful, fragrant with lemon, and dotted with garlic, broccoli, and pine nuts. Any pasta is fine, but we opt for capellini, angel hair, or even small shells. No worries if you don't have those on hand, though, because truly any pasta choice would be delicious in this dish. Fresh or frozen broccoli also both work, just in case. Oftentimes, frozen vegetables are actually 'fresher' than some fresh ones, because they're harvested at their peak ripeness and then immediately frozen. if you're using frozen here, celebrate that! 

Of course, olive oil and garlic are building blocks of many dishes, especially within the pasta lexicon. Here, we also use lemon in two different ways, which helps bolster the acidity and lemon-forward flavor, making this dish very, very lemony and bright. Lastly, the nutty, buttery flavor of pine nuts help tie the whole dish together. For garnish, we think some vegan Parmesan cheese would be an excellent topping, or perhaps some toasted breadcrumbs with lemon zest. Nutritional yeast would also be a great finishing touch.

If you're a carnivore looking for an extra boost of protein but this dish sounds delicious for you, throw some grilled chicken on top of the cooked pasta, or go wild and add bacon or pancetta to the olive oil and garlic base. A touch of cream, white wine, or some sort of stock or broth would also help to up the moisture content—but just a quick splash. 

If you're not a microwave fan, no worries. Add broccoli to the oil and garlic base and sauté the broccoli that way. You're just looking to soften and cook the broccoli here—not give it any color or crisp—so sautéing for a bit would do the trick. Vegan or not, we're pretty sure that the whole family would enjoy this lemon-forward pasta, so don't be shy to make this—we can't recommend it enough.