Butternut squash spaghetti sauce.

If I tell you I found the perfect Mac 'n cheese sauce and it's totally vegan, would you believe me ? I know, I know, I had a hard time myself. How could the words vegan and cheese be associated ? Like, seriously. And yet...

As usual, I was searching my favorite vegan blog -Oh She Glows- to find a recipe with butternut squash. I felt a bit tired of simply roasting it or blending it as a soup. I was in search of something new, something delicious, something comforting, and something that would make me forget about the rain. I was also craving pasta for some odd reason. And here it was once more, the perfect recipe.

Butternut squash spaghetti sauce.
Adapted from Butternut Squash Mac 'n cheeze by Oh She Glows.

Ingredients:
1 fresh butternut squash, peeled and chopped
Extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp Earth Balance
3/4 cup unsweetened & original almond milk
1 tbsp corn flour
2 tsp Dijon mustard
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2-1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup onion, chopped
4 serving of spaghetti
1 cup peas

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 425F. Mix chopped squash with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Roast for about 40 minutes, uncovered, or until tender.
2. Meanwhile, prepare the cheese sauce. Add Earth balance over low-medium heat. In a bowl, whisk together milk and corn flour. Add into pot and whisk. Stir in remaining ingredients (Dijon, garlic, lemon, salt and pepper to taste) and whisk over low heat until thickened (it took about 5 minutes or so).
3. Cook your pasta according to package directions.
4. While your pasta are cooking, brown the onion over low heat in a big pot.
5. In a blender, blend the sauce with 1 cup of roasted squash. Reserve remaining roasted squash for later.
6. Add cooked, drained, and rinsed spaghetti into pot, along with cheese sauce, peas and remaining roasted squash.

It was absolutely delicious and it did taste like Mac 'n cheese sauce. The original recipe called for nutritional yeast, which is supposed to give a cheesy taste to your dish. But I didn't have any at hands so I skipped that ingredient, thinking I will never get the cheesy taste I was looking for. Wrong. Even without nutritional yeast, the sauce had the flavor, the consistency and the color of real Mac 'n cheese sauce. I am continually amazed by what you can do with healthy ingredients. Really, everything I used in this recipe is pretty much natural ! This dish has the taste of junk food, but the quality of healthy food. Does it get better than this ? I doubt it.

Try it out and let me know what you think !