We are bringing all that delicious Southwestern goodness in the form of creamy pasta heaven. This homemade Vegan Smoky Southwestern Mac is brimming with nourishing deliciousness. It is total Southwestern comfort food at its best!  Tasty macaroni, sweet corn, vibrant red bell peppers, and hearty black beans are coated in a velvety, aromatic sauce that will have the whole family seated at the table in a flash! A mac dinner filled with all healthy, wholesome ingredients and tastes amazing, what could be better than that?!

Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

Hi there, Ameera here!

Mac drenched in a creamy southwestern sauce is totally dream worthy. We can never get enough Southwestern flavors and this pasta dish totally shines in all its smoky, earthy, flavorful glory.

We created this dish as a seasoned cream sauce and not necessarily a cheese sauce. It has a reminiscent cheese like flavor, but we do not consider it a mac and cheese style dish. It is just so gosh darned tasty as a southwestern cream sauce, but we want to give you a heads up that if you are expecting mac and cheese with a southwestern twist, that isn’t quite what you’ll get. This delicious dish is in its own saucy category.

Mom and I were in heaven eating this mac of yumminess, and we think you’ll fall in love with it too!

White Wine

The white wine adds a nice element to this dish! If you are worried that you are purchasing it only for this dish, we have a couple options to help you out.

1) Type white wine in our search bar and find a ton of other recipes that use white wine.

2) Or you can pour the wine into ice cube trays and freeze them into cubes, and then pull out how much you need for later recipes.  Now how cool is that, right?  I thought so, but I can’t take credit for it, Google is a wonderous thing!  LOL

Loose Sauce

After you buzz the sauce and put it in the skillet, you are going to say to yourself, “This sauce is way too loose!”  Fear not, it will thicken from the cashews.

After you cook it for about 5 minutes, it will slowly start to thicken, but the real magic happens after you add the macaroni and beans, simmer for a few minutes, then remove it from the stove.

Let it sit for 10 minutes, the simple reduction in heat will cause the cashews in the sauce to tighten and within 10 minutes, you will have the most creamy, dreamy saucey goodness!

I’ll let Mom tell you more.

This post contains affiliate links, and we 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.

Hi! Robin here!

This Vegan Smoky Southwestern Mac was pure comfort food heaven! Talk about down home cooking, it totally had us all doing a happy dance. There are a lot of happy dances in our kitchen, but I can’t talk about those without also discussing the numerous kitchen tests it takes to arrive at those “happy dance worthy” kitchen tests!

Monkey and I are both intuitive cooks, but even being very intuitive in the kitchen can result in some freakish kitchen disasters that go straight into the garden compost. Those are sad days in our house. Thankfully that doesn’t happen too often, but it does happen.

Roasted Red Peppers

Yes, the roasted red peppers are listed in the ingredients twice, once in the Sauce Ingredients section and another time in the Other Ingredients section.

Both measure ¼ cup: the first ¼ cup gets blended with the sauce and the 2^nd  ¼ cup (1/2 cup total) gets diced and placed in the sauce later after it has been blended.

The second ¼ cup is for textural purposes and works out very nicely, at least we think so. 😀

We hope you give this deliciousness a try!  We just know you are going to love it!

If you try this comforting dish, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us!  We would love to hear from you.

Products Used:

• Stock pot to cook the pasta
• Large non-stick skillet or similarly large skillet to cook the sauce
• High-Speed Blender

Vegan Smokey Southwestern Mac

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• Author: Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures
• Prep Time: 20 Minutes
• Cook Time: 30 Minutes
• Total Time: 50 Minutes (+10 Min Rest)
• Yield: 4-5 1x
• Category: Dinner
• Method: Stovetop
• Cuisine: Southwestern

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Description

We are bringing all that delicious Southwestern goodness in the form of creamy pasta heaven. This homemade Vegan Smoky Southwestern Mac is brimming with nourishing deliciousness. It is total Southwestern comfort food at its best!  Tasty macaroni, sweet corn, vibrant red bell peppers, and hearty black beans are coated in a velvety, aromatic sauce that will have the whole family seated at the table in a flash! A mac dinner filled with all healthy, wholesome ingredients and tastes amazing, what could be better than that?!

Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

Sauce Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup raw cashews
• 1 cup unsweetened plain plant milk
• 1 cup yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
• ½ cup white wine *
• ½ cup vegetable broth *
• ½ cup water (or broth)
• 1 Tablespoon white miso *
• 3 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
• ¼ cup roasted red peppers 

Spice/Herb Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon dried minced onions
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• ¼ teaspoon chipotle powder
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon ground mustard
• Pinch coriander
• 1 teaspoon sea salt (+/- to taste) *
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper

Other Ingredients

• 10 oz. elbow macaroni (or pasta of choice)
• 1 cup corn
• 1 cup cooked black beans
• ¼ cup roasted red peppers, small dice

Optional Toppings:

• Tortilla chips
• Chopped fresh cilantro
• Pickled or fresh jalapeno slices
• Avocado, sliced or diced

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Instructions

Pasta Boil Instructions

1. Fill a large stock pot full of water. Add some sea salt to the water. Bring the water to a boil then add the pasta. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking. Note: You want to coordinate the completion of the pasta cooking time with the completion of the sauce. If unsure, then just wait to put the pasta into the boiling water once the sauce is done. Just turn the sauce down really low or remove from the stove.  Boil the pasta until el dente, drain, rinse with cold water to remove any excess starch, shake well to remove any excess water trapped inside the elbow macaroni, then transfer the cooked pasta into the sauce in Step 6.  

Instructions

1. Place the cashews in a small bowl, cover with boiling water, set aside for 20 minutes or boil cashews in a small pot for 10 minutes. Then drain off the water until ready to use.
2. Place the Spice/Herb Ingredients into a small bowl, mix, set aside.
3. In a large ceramic/enamel lined Dutch oven/pot or similarly large stockpot/skillet, add the finely diced onions, sauté over medium-high heat for 5 to 7 minutes until the onions are tender. (If needed to prevent sticking, add a splash of vegetable broth or water).
4. Add the minced garlic and sauté for one minute, add the Spice/Herb mix, stirring constantly for 30 seconds, just to release their fragrance. Then add in the white wine, stirring constantly to allow the alcohol to evaporate/reduce.  Note: All the liquid will not evaporate. Then add the plant milk, vegetable broth, water, miso, nutritional yeast, ¼ cup roasted red peppers, and cashews, simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from the stove to cool slightly.
5. Place the sauce it into a high-speed blender and blend on high for one minute (or longer) to make the mixture creamy and smooth, then return to the cooking pot and simmer for 5 minutes. The sauce will still be somewhat loose but will thicken up later.
6. Stir in the cooked pasta, corn, ¼ cup diced roasted red peppers, and black beans. Simmer for 3 to 4 minutes to allow the flavors to marry.  Remove from the heat and allow to set for 5 to 10 minutes.  This will allow the sauce to tighten up.
7. Serve with some freshly chopped cilantro, avocadoes, pickled jalapenos (or fresh jalapenos) and tortilla chips.

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Notes

*Vegetable Stock:   We use Pacific Organic Low Sodium Vegetable Stock. We love this brand because it is Whole Food Plant Based compliant, as it does not contain MSG, has no oil, and does not contain any highly-processed ingredients.

*White Wine: We used Vegan Sovereign Blanc White Wine,or any vegan dry white wine will work equally well.  The white wine flavor makes a difference.  It totally makes this recipe by adding dimension. The alcohol burns off and you are left with this beautiful nuance of flavor.  You do not have to add the white wine, you will need to slightly ramp up the flavors if you leave it out. The white wine just takes this dish to the next level of deliciousness.

*Pasta of choice:  You can use your favorite pasta in this dish.  We used brown rice elbow macaroni.

*Miso: We used Miso Master Organic Mellow White Premium Lite Miso, Certified Gluten Free.  Miso really lends itself to balancing flavors when you don’t use oil. You can also substitute with chickpea miso for a soy free version.

*Sea Salt:  Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.

Servings:  4 – 5

Storage:  Refrigerate and use within 5 days.

This post contains affiliate links, and we 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.