Gluten Free Dairy Free Fettuccine Alfredo Recipe (vegan) with optional Shrimp and Asparagus

A couple of years ago, I was on a kick to duplicate all of the recipes my mother used to make growing up, only this time gluten and dairy free.  One of the toughest was Fettuccine Alfredo.  The recipe below is for making it as a side dish but, I've included instruction at the bottom for adding asparagus and shrimp and expanding it into a full meal.  (This is how I made it last and it was incredible!)

Please note, this recipe makes enough dairy free alfredo sauce for 8oz of pasta however, the recipe easily scales up (by half for 12oz and double for 16oz).

Ingredients:
8oz Gluten Free Fettuccine
1 cup almond milk (you could also use hemp or rice milk but rice milk will take longer to thicken)
2 Tbsp GF flour (any blend should be fine)
3 Tbsp Vegan Parmesan Cheese
3 Tbsp olive oil

How to prepare Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo:
Cook the pasta until al dente.  Unfortunately, I find most manufacturers have an unrealistically long cooking time on the package so you'll have to test for doneness.  Meanwhile in a sauce pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the flour and stir until it starts to brown.  Add vegan Parmesan and almond (hemp/rice) milk while continuing to stir. Allow to thicken stirring occasionally. If it finishes thickening before the pasta is done, remove from heat until pasta is done (you'll need to reheat it once the pasta is ready). Drain the pasta and cover with sauce.

Makes 3-4 side dish servings.

Alternate Version

1 pound medium asparagus
1/2 pound cleaned and deveined shrimp

Wash the asparagus making sure to rinse any sand from the tips.  Cut (and discard) the woody part off the bottom of the asparagus (about 2") and then cut into roughly 2" pieces keeping the tips separate.  Boil everything in 2 quarts of boiling salted water.  Cooking times are as follows:


Gluten Free / Dairy Free Fettuccine Alfredo
with Shrimp and Asparagus



Asparagus stalks - 6 minutes

Asparagus tips - 4 minutes
Shrimp - 3 minutes

I just added them to the pot one after another according to their cooking times.  When finished, drain and add to the pasta immediately prior to covering with the alfredo sauce.

Makes two main dish servings.

Note: I considered cooking everything (pasta included) in the same pot and simply adding each according to its cooking time.  There were two reasons I didn't: first, I wasn't sure the exact cooking time of the pasta and didn't want to over cook the shrimp if the fettuccine wasn't done in time and second, adding room temperature asparagus and cold shrimp to the pasta water would drop its temperature and I wasn't sure what affect that would have on the boiling time either.

One final thought: Fettuccine is the proper italian spelling of this type of pasta.  According to dictionary.com, in English there are an additional three possible spellings: fettuccini, fettucine, and fettucini.

Other Gluten Free Dairy Free Recipes You May Enjoy:

Gluten Free Dairy Free Vegan Stuffed Shells

Gluten Free Dairy Free Authentic Arroz con Pollo Recipe (Chicken and Rice)