Triple White Sauce

It's already December!? That's crazy. While we were busy hosting miso and kimchi workshops and preparing for our holiday markets, a few months have already passed! Do you have any fun plans for this holiday season?

I don't know about you, but I love cream pasta. Its creaminess and richness are so satisfying and I feel warm and loved. Perfect for the cold season, right? At the same time, regular dairy cream sauce can be really heavy and after the first few bites, it loses its attractiveness (am I just getting old?).

Good news! This triple white sauce is plant-based and gluten-free, so it's a lot lighter compared to the dairy counterpart and yet as satisfying and healthier. The triple ferments used in the sauce is sake lees, Shio Koji, and miso. Sake lees is a by-product that comes from the sake-making process. It is jam-packed with nutrients. It is used for pickles, miso soup, amazake (Japanese fermented rice drink), ice cream, bread, meat tenderizer, and more. You can source sake lees from a local sake brewery, Artisan Sake Maker, on Granville Island, Vancouver. 

This sauce is good not only for pasta, but also for rice (risotto!), lasagne, or even stew by adding more vegetables! Shall we start now?

Ingredients

White Sauce

1 cup Almond milk

1 Tbsp Sakekasu / Sake lees 

1 Tbsp Tapioca flour (or rice flour, oat flour, all-purpose flour, etc.)

2 tsp Shio Koji 

1 tsp Miso*

Black pepper to taste

(optional) 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast or plant-based queso dip

Pasta

200 g Choice of your pasta

Mushrooms, Spinach, Onions, Broccoli, etc.

Olive oil

Sea salt (to cook pasta)

Instructions: 

1. Boil water. Once it comes to a boil, add sea salt and cook pasta for the length of instruction on the package.
2. Dissolve flour in almond milk first, and add all the other sauce ingredients except black pepper in a small saucepan to heat. 
3. Heat a pan on medium heat with olive oil and sauté onions. Once golden brown, add other vegetables and cook until fragrant. 
4. Add the sauce and cooked pasta into the pan and mix everything well.
5. Add black pepper to your liking and serve on a plate.

* You can use any kinds of miso. White miso is milder while red miso is richer and saltier.