Green Pea Rotini // Tomato Tempeh

This is one of my favorite weeknight go-to meals…. It’s EASY, FAST, SIMPLE and DELICIOUS! 

Seriously though… less than 25 minutes to make, 7 ingredients required, and oh-so scrumptious!!! This is adapted from my father’s famous Shrimp Pasta, in which he uses a homemade tomato sauce with garlic and adds shrimp. I’ve pretty much taken his recipe, added a few fun vegan flares, and subbed the shrimp for tempeh.

You can really use any type of pasta you like, but I really love this green pea rotini pasta I found recently at my local grocery store on the Upper East Side, A Matter of Health. It tastes just like pasta but is made from green peas and lentils for extra added protein and deliciousness.

Let me know if you try it out in the comments below!! Recipe is for one person 🙂

Ingredients

• Green pea rotini pasta (I usually make about 1.5 servings, so like 75 grams or so)
• Olive oil
• Salt
• 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic
• Thickly sliced Tempeh (I usually use about 1/3 package of Lightlife flaxseed tempeh)
• Soy sauce
• Sesame seed oil
• One medium-sized, ripe beefsteak tomato (coarsely chopped) + a handful of cherry tomatoes (also chopped) if you’ve got ’em on hand
• Butter to add to pasta when it drains (if non-vegan)
• Good quality Parmagiano Reggiano to top the pasta (if non-vegan)

Instructions

1. Add water, olive oil and salt to a pot and bring to a boil. While it’s getting to boil, complete the other following steps…
2. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to a nonstick pan and turn the heat to medium.
3. After about a minute or so, add the chopped garlic. Stir around in the pan so the pan is well coated in olive oil and garlic. Turn the heat down to low.
4. Now, bring all the garlic back to one side of the pan, and place the slices of tempeh atop the garlic and turn the heat up to medium-low.
5. After the garlic starts to sizzle a bit (maybe 20-30 sec), drizzle sesame seed oil and soy sauce over the tempeh.
6. Wait a minute or so, and then carefully turn the tempeh over and try to separate it as much as you can from the garlic, and place it on the other side of the pan.
7. Add the tomatoes to where the tempeh was before you pushed it aside, and add salt to taste.
8. Start to turn the heat up to medium, and mash the tomato with a sturdy wooden spatula. Keep mashing for a few minutes, and then turn the heat back down to medium-low, and mix the tomatoes back in with the tempeh. Cover the pan with a lid.
9. At this point, the water should be boiling, so go ahead and add in the pasta.
10. Prepare the pasta drainer, etc. and check in on the tomato sauce to make sure it’s not burning. It should be slightly watery at this point, so just keep mashing if it’s not already chunky and broken down.
11. Once the pasta is ready, drain it, add butter and salt to taste, and serve in a plate with the tomato tempeh sauce on top.
12. I like to add some high-quality Parmagiano Reggiano to the top of the pasta, but if you’re vegan, you can skip this option 🙂 Enjoy!!! Comment below if you try the recipe xx