Fresh, rich, and oh-so-yummy, this Easy Basil Pasta Sauce Topped with Roasted Chickpeas is absolutely delicious and SO easy to make. This amazing homemade pasta sauce will make you forget all about jarred sauces, and the chickpeas are like tasty little bits of joy! Whole Food Plant Based dish, no oil, no sugar, no highly processed ingredients, and gluten free.
Hi! Robin here.
Before we get into this incredibly fast and yummy Easy Basil Pasta Sauce Topped with Roasted Chickpeas, which was inspired by Half Baked Harvest’s Easiest Tomato Basil Penne with Spicy Italian Chickpeas recipe.
Now let’s take a ride down memory lane…
My mom always bought pre-made spaghetti sauce that came out of a jar. I never thought about it much really. It was just one of those things that as a kid, you just didn’t think on it too much. The only thing she varied was the pasta. It was either spaghetti or rigatoni, and on a rare occasion, she would cook wagon wheel pasta or fusilli. We called fusilli “cork-screws.”
Italian Cuisine
Eating spaghetti sauce from a jar was about as adventurous as we got into exploring the Italian cuisine. On a rare occasion Mom would make lasagna, but she would use cottage cheese instead of ricotta cheese. I think it was just easier for her to pull that together and less expensive than ricotta cheese. As kids, we all loved it just the same. We scarfed it down.
Marrying an Italian
It wasn’t until I married TP109 that I fully understood that there was a whole world of pasta options, sauces and thousands of Italian dishes that I would fall in love with.
Homemade Italian Pasta Sauce
When I first started dating TP, I wanted to impress him with my awesome cooking skills by making a homemade pasta sauce. I researched and analyzed tons of cookbook recipes (no internet back then) in my quest to create the perfect homemade pasta sauce. I was on a mission to perform culinary wizardry to impress TP. After finally landing on the perfect ingredients, I told him that I was going to cook him a homemade Italian sauce and pasta dinner. I was super hyped and felt pretty confident that I could pull it off and we set a date for the following Saturday.
“Hurry up and wait”
That Saturday morning, I went to the grocery store and selected all the freshest ingredients I could find for my sauce: fresh basil, fresh parsley, etc. Our dinner date was set for 6:00pm that evening, so I calculated that starting the sauce at 4:00pm and allowing the sauce to simmer for a couple hours would ensure that everything would be done and ready to eat by 6.
What I forgot to factor in was that TP was notorious for being late; he was late for every date we ever had . . . seriously, every – single – date! It drove me crazy and we almost didn’t get together because I am the exact opposite and it was so frustrating.
I am the “hurry up and wait” type of person. I am always early for everything. I always arrive early to work, early for doctor appointments, dentist appointments, early for everything. I am a planner and I always PLAN to be early. My parents taught me it was disrespectful of people’s time if I didn’t arrive on time or early; that somehow it meant that my time was more important than theirs. That life lesson really stuck with me.
The Spoon Test
So, as you can guess, TP did not show up at my door until 9pm, 3 hours late. All the work and effort that I had put into creating this delicious pasta sauce was down the drain. When he finally arrived, I wasn’t saying too much. He went over to the stove and tried to stir the sauce and the spoon stood up on its own in the middle of the sauce like a silent stake through my heart. Then he had the nerve to say “Uhhhmmm I don’t think it’s supposed to be this thick where the spoon can stand straight up in the sauce all by itself!” Then he looked over at me, and immediately shut up, tasted it and declared it was thee best pasta sauce he had ever eaten in his entire life and wanted to eat it all right then and there.
Lessons Learned
Two lessons learned came out of this experience.
- TP is always late, he just is. It is an inherent part of his character. Plan accordingly, or do your own thing. I typically do my own thing. LOL
- I make a dang great pasta sauce.
Easy Pasta Sauce
I explain all of that to say, I can also make a fast and easy pasta sauce with just a few wholesome ingredients. The base flavor ingredient of this awesome pasta sauce besides tomatoes is the fresh basil. It is so easy and fast that you can have it on the table within 15 to 20 minutes. I hope you give it a try because it is all that!
This post contains affiliate links, and I may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.
Ameera here!
I love, love, love this pasta sauce! It is so flavorful and delicious, not to mention super fast. It is perfect on any type of pasta, but I especially love that this pasta dish is topped with roasted chickpeas and a dollop of Kite Hill Vegan cheese.
Kite Hill Vegan Cream Cheese/Ricotta Cheese
As someone who has been on the Whole Food Plant Based lifestyle for a while, there are certain things that you come to expect and accept. I thought that becoming Whole Food Plant Based meant that I would never enjoy the creamy deliciousness of cream cheese or ricotta cheese again. WRONG! I just found Kite Hill Vegan Cream Cheese and it was love at first bite.
As a Vegan, you know that certain substitutions are not going to taste the same as the real McCoy. You know this and you expect this, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy them. You certainly can. However, again, you accept that certain Vegan reproductions aren’t going to have the same texture or flavor.
It is so hard to find a Vegan cheese that doesn’t have oil in, but the beauty of Kite Hill’s products is that they are Whole Food Plant Based compliant! I am in love!
The hardest part is not putting it on everything. We put the Kite Hill Cream Cheese on our pasta dish simply because we couldn’t find the Kite Hill ricotta cheese. The taste was divine! Ohhh, and by-the-way, this is NOT a sponsored advertisement for Kite Hill. I am just raving because I wanted to share with other WFPB’ers that there is a cheese out there that is not full of chemicals and is super creamy and delicious.
Give this pasta dish a try, and if your grocery carries the Kite Hill brand, give it a try. You won’t be sorry!
Products Used:
- 8-quart ceramic/enamel lined Dutch oven or similar large stock pot
- Mini-chop food processor
- Baking sheet
- Large serving platter
Easy Basil Pasta Sauce topped with Roasted Chickpeas
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 6 Servings 1x
- Category: Dinner, Sauce
- Cuisine: Italian
Description
Fresh, rich, and oh-so-yummy, this Easy Basil Pasta Sauce Topped with Roasted Chickpeas is absolutely delicious and SO easy to make. This amazing homemade pasta sauce will make you forget all about jarred sauces, and the chickpeas are like tasty little bits of joy! Whole Food Plant Based dish, no oil, no sugar, no highly processed ingredients, and gluten free.
This Easy Basil Pasta Sauce Topped with Roasted Chickpeas recipe was inspired by Half Baked Harvest’s Easiest Tomato Basil Penne with Spicy Italian Chickpeas recipe.
Ingredients
Basil Pasta Sauce Ingredients:
- 2 – [ 26.46 oz. carton ] Pomi Strained Tomatoes
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 Tablespoon dried minced onions
- 1 – 2 teaspoons sea salt (+/-) *
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper (+/-)
- ½ cup fresh basil leaves (firmly packed) or approx. 15 basil leaves (with ¼ cup water)
Roasted Chickpea Ingredients:
- 1 can [ 15.5 oz. can ] chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- Sprinkle sea salt
- Sprinkle black pepper
- Sprinkle garlic powder
- Sprinkle onion powder
- Sprinkle sweet paprika
- Very light sprinkle cayenne pepper
Other Ingredients:
- 1-pound pasta (of choice)
- ½ cup vegan cream cheese *
- Fresh basil leaves, chiffonade for topping dish
- Red pepper flakes
- Vegan Parmesan Cheese
Vegan “Parmesan” Cheese Ingredient:
- ¼ cup raw cashews
- ¼ cup blanched slivered almonds
- 2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
Basil Pasta Sauce Instructions
- Place the fresh basil leaves and ¼ cup of water into a mini chop and pulse a few times to finely chop the basil. Set aside.
- In a large ceramic/enamel lined Dutch oven/pot or similarly large stockpot, add the sauce ingredients, increase the heat to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Simmer until the pasta is cooked, approx. 12 minutes.
Roasted Chickpea Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 F.
- Rinse, drain, and pat dry the chickpeas. Place them on a baking sheet. Sprinkle dry seasonings onto the chickpeas and place in the oven at 400 F for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove from oven and set aside until the pasta is cooked.
Vegan “Parmesan” Cheese Instructions
- Add all the ingredients into a high-speed blender and pulse for one minute.
- Ready to use!
Pasta Cooking Instructions and Serving
- Boil pasta according to package directions until al dente, drain, rinse, and place in a large bowl. Coat the pasta with a generous amount of basil pasta sauce, then transfer the pasta onto a large serving platter.
- Top with the roasted chickpeas and dollops of vegan cream cheese (or vegan ricotta cream cheese).
- Sprinkle with Vegan Parmesan Cheese, basils pieces, and red pepper flake.
Notes
*Sea Salt: You may need to add some sea salt. We added 2 teaspoons to the pasta sauce as we felt the added sea salt improved the flavor. Feel free to adjust the sea salt according to your diet.
*Kite Hill Vegan Cream Cheese/Ricotta Cheese: We absolutely love the Kite Hill brand. It is the only Whole Food Plant Based compliant brand that we could find.
*Vegan “Parmesan” Cheese: Makes 0.5 Cups
*Vegan “Parmesan” Cheese Storage: Refrigerate, use within 10 days. Freezes well, use within 3 months.
Storage: Cool to warm and refrigerate.
This post contains affiliate links, and I may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.