Roasted Red Pepper Chickpea Pasta (Gluten Free)
This simple, gluten free pasta made with chickpea noodles offers all of the comfort of typical pasta, without the heavy carb overload. The bitter, peppery arugula is a glowing compliment to the sweet, roasted peppers. Pasta night just got kicked up a notch.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I am obsessed with red bell peppers.
Growing up, one of my favorite recipes my dad made was his “orange pepper pasta.” It was made with some kind of spiral shell shaped noodles, charred orange bell peppers with the skin peeled off, and goat cheese. You could count on me to eat at least 3 bowls of it, and probably twice the amount of calories that were ideal for one sitting. To this day, I can readily conjure fond images in my mind of the ingredients entering the blender and pureeing into a pleasing light orange color.
I loved this recipe so much because I was a carb-aholic, and that fact remains true to this day. Nothing sounds better to me than mac n cheese, noodles and butter, grilled cheese, and pizza (so it should then come as no surprise I have debuted with a vegan patty melt as my proudest creation, and am one trial away from launching my vegan supreme pizza).
That delicious orange pepper pasta I enjoyed through all of my childhood, and my love of bell peppers (particularly, red) led me to the inspiration to create my own pepper based, easy, delicious, comforting pasta.
Recreating the recipe verbatim was not enough, though. As the carb overload that comes with a pasta meal is not ideal for anyone, and as gluten promotes a leaky gut, I had to make this meal gluten free. Enter, chickpea noodles!
Of course, as I am a vegan recipe developer, it is also dairy free. I played around with the idea of adding vegan cheese, but decided against it when I ran a second trial of the recipe and concluded it is one of the best pasta dishes I have ever made.
The chickpea noodles offer a sense of fullness that does not come with regular pasta, and the arugula a fantastic compliment to the sweet notes of the bell pepper. A squeeze of juice from half a lime offers the perfect finishing touch. I hope you will love this dish as much as I do!
Gluten Free Roasted Red Pepper Chickpea Pasta
Equipment
- Baking sheet
- Food processor
- Large saucepan
- Colander
Ingredients
- 3 medium red bell peppers sliced and roasted until blackened
- 1/4 cup unsweet almond milk
- 1 tbsp tahini
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- Black pepper, to taste
- 8 oz chickpea noodles
- 2 cups arugula
- Juice from 1/2 a lime
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450°F. Slice the red bell peppers into two or four pieces and deseed (I find it helpful to slice along the grooves and then pull the pepper apart, as shown here). Arrange the peppers skin side up on a baking sheet lined with foil, and bake until skins begin to blacken, 20-30 minutes.
- When the peppers' skin is blackened to your liking, remove from the oven and allow to cool for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, fill a large saucepan with water and bring to a boil.
- Peel the skin off of the peppers. The skin should slip off very easily, and I found that no steaming in a bag was required as stated in other recipes. The less pieces of peppers you have to peel, the faster you will complete this step.
- Add the peeled peppers to a food processor. Salt the pasta water and add the chickpea noodles to the boiling water. Stir the noodles occasionally, and I would recommend tasting a noodle for doneness at 6 or 7 minutes in. A 9 minute cook time was listed on the low end range of the pasta box I purchased, and it was too long.
- As you wait for the noodles to cook, add the almond milk (make sure it is unsweet — this is very important), tahini, onion powder, garlic powder, bay leaf, sea salt, and black pepper to the food processor with the peppers. Blend until smooth.
- Drain the chickpea noodles once they are cooked to your liking. Add the sauce and arugula, and squeeze the juice of 1/2 a lime over the dish. Mix to combine, and serve!
This was a great dinner! Paired very well with some lightly salted and peppered spaghetti squash!
It was good, I’m liking that chickpea pasta more and more each time I try it, but I thought it was lacking something, like it needed something to wake it up a bit. I used bottled lime juice, I imagine it would be better with juice from a real live lime. In any case, would definitely try it again!