Homemade Vegan Trofie Pasta with Pesto
Trofie pasta is a thin, twisted pasta from Liguria in Italy that’s made from three simple ingredients. Have a go at making your own trofie pasta at home with this traditional recipe served with a delightfully fresh vegan basil pesto.
“Vegan Homemade Trofie Pasta is a classic Italian fresh pasta made for centuries on the Italian Riviera Ligure. Our recipe follows the original tradition. It’s made with only three ingredients, it’s naturally vegan, shaped by hand, and dressed with a delicious vegan pesto sauce.” – Nico & Louise
Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Calories: 301
Servings: 6
Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Calories: 301
Servings: 6
Ingredients
Method
Ingredients
(Servings: 6)
- For the trofie pasta
- 83.333333333333 83.333333333333 g semolina
- 41.666666666667 41.666666666667 ml hot water
- 0.16666666666667 0.16666666666667 tsp salt
- For the pesto
- 16.666666666667 16.666666666667 g fresh basil leaves
- 16.666666666667 16.666666666667 g roasted macadamia nuts
- 4.1666666666667 4.1666666666667 g nutritional yeast
- 0.083333333333333 0.083333333333333 clove garlic (slice it into thin slices before blending it)
- 1.6666666666667 1.6666666666667 Tbsp ice water
Method
To make the trofie pasta:
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On a clean surface, make a volcano shape with the semolina and add the salt to the center. Slowly add the water into the volcano-shaped semolina and start incorporating water and semolina with a fork, starting from the inside of the volcano. Keep incorporating semolina and water until you added most of the water.
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When the semolina has absorbed most of the water, start bringing all the semolina pieces together with your hands, and shape them into a dough ball. Knead the dough with your hands for at least 10 minutes, until it looks smooth. See video for technique.
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Make a dough ball, and let it rest wrapped in film for 15 minutes. This will help relax the gluten, and you’ll have an easier time shaping the pasta into the trofie.
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Start shaping the pasta into trofie. Cut the dough ball into 10 pieces. Then start rolling one piece at a time into long snake-shaped pasta tubes. Keep the other pasta pieces wrapped in the foil or they’ll get dry.
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Cut the long pasta snakes into small 1-inch long (3 cm) pieces. With the palm of your hand roll each small piece forward making it thinner and wider. Then with the side of your hand, roll backward diagonally, forming a little screw-shaped pasta piece (trofia). See the video to learn the technique.
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Cook the trofie in salted boiling water and serve with vegan pesto sauce.
To make the pesto:
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In a blender, add all the ingredients and pulse about 20 times.
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Order of ingredients in the blender is macadamia nuts, nutritional yeast, salt, garlic, water and basil.
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Don’t blend continuously. This will cause the basil to heat up and to lose its flavour.
Important note: basil doesn’t like heat. As soon as you heat up your pesto, it will lose its flavour. Do not blend at high speed, do not heat up the pesto on a pan, use iced water in the blender to keep the pesto cool.
