This delicious vegetable pasta dish is vegan, oil-free, and so super quick and easy to make that it makes the weekly rotation at our house all summer long! It can even be made with gluten-free pasta if desired.
Begin by making the super easyparmesan recipe . Add all of the parmesan ingredients to your blender and PULSE until the texture is fine and powdery. This recipe makes more than you need, so save the rest for sprinkling on spaghetti and other dishes. Set it to the side while preparing the other ingredients.
Preheat your oven to 450°F to get it ready to roast the veggies.
Wash and slice the veggies you plan to use. For me, green bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and purple onions are always on the list. Other options might include mushrooms, broccoli florets, squash, zucchini, snow peas, and shelled edamame.
Toss the prepped vegetables, except for the tomatoes (unless you want to roast the tomatoes too) and basil, into a large bowl. Add the vegetable broth, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and garlic to the bowl.
Thoroughly coat the veggies with the seasoning mix and then spread them out thinly on a baking sheet. I use a silicone baking mat to roast the veggies without oil, or you can use if you don’t have a mat. Be sure to spread them out evenly, we want them in direct contact with the heat of the pan so that they will crisp up a little around the edges.
Once the veggies are coated, pop them into the preheated oven and roast for 20 minutes or until tender with slightly caramelized edges.
While the veggies are cooking, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook the pasta in salted water according to the package directions. Reserve 1/2 cup of the water from the pasta before draining.
When the pasta is cooked and drained, add it back to the now empty pasta pot and begin adding in the reserved pasta water, roasted vegetables, cherry tomatoes, and half of the vegan parmesan cheese.
Drizzle in the lemon juice and add basil and give one more toss. Add the remaining vegan parmesan cheese to the top before serving. Vegetable primavera is great served hot or cold!
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Notes
Pasta Options:You can use any pasta desired including spaghetti, fettuccine, penne, bow tie, spiral, rotini, and others.For those avoiding gluten, try using brown rice noodles, chickpea pasta, or even zucchini noodles which are also known as zoodles. There are numerous other wheat-free pasta options available in many grocery stores.Tips and shortcuts:
Most supermarkets carry fresh chopped fajita veggies like tri-color peppers and sliced onions in the frozen section which work really well in this recipe and save you from needing to chop vegetables.
Looking to mix things up and turn an ordinary primavera pasta recipe into something fun? Use traditional spaghetti or angel hair pasta and, because the veggies are sliced into long strips, you can eat your veggie spaghetti with chopsticks. Perfect for a summer picnic basket at the park!
About the Chef:Drenda Michell Brennan lived in Japan in the 1990s and learned many traditional Asian cooking methods. She is the mother of 3 Japanese-American grown children and grandmother (HuneyGram) to 8 grandchildren.