Delicious vegetarian homemade beet pasta with a lemon garlic alfredo sauce. It's tangy, garlicky, and oh so creamy.
This post is about is all about beet pasta. The best fall recipe you can make with homemade fresh beet pasta and a creamy lemon garlic alfredo sauce.
One of our favourite 'pink' pasta in our family. There's nothing more delicious than homemade fresh pasta. We trade in our regular water for beet juice to make this delicious beet pasta. Fresh pasta is unbeet-able (see what I did there?) compare to regular pasta.
One taste and you'll be hooked! Trust me, you'll see why people would choose fresh pasta over regular store bought pasta. I love adding colour to my homemade fresh pasta like adding spinach juice, carrot juice, and squid ink. My favourite is still beet pasta.
Adding beet juice into fresh homemade pasta is also more nutritional. Beets are bright red for a good reason! It's packed with folate (Vitamin B9) that helps cells grow and function.
And the cream cheese alfredo sauce is unbelievably tasty. It would be hard to believe there's no meat in it. It's creamy, smooth, tangy, and bold in flavour. We use this alfredo sauce for everything! It just so happens his alfredo sauce goes perfectly with this homemade fresh beet pasta.
For this fresh homemade pasta, we are going to get some help with the Phillips Pasta Maker machine. It is easy and effortless. You get fresh homemade pasta in 3 minutes!
Why you will love this beet pasta and lemon garlic Alfredo sauce
- Delicious - There's something so addictingly tasty when you add garlic, lemon, cream cheese, and parmesan cheese together. It's bold and flavourful! Trust me this will be your favourite vegetarian cream pasta!
- So colourful - yes! The colours you're going to get out of this pasta are extraordinary. It's so beautiful to look at! Once you start mixing it with the cream sauce, you'll find it irresistible not to dig into it!
- Fun project with the kids - kids love colour but don't just stop at just paper and pen. This is a fun colourful project for the kids and watch them get excited making this 'pink' pasta.
- Unbeatable taste - I've tried all sorts of 'vegetable pasta' and it comes nothing close to fresh beet pasta. You truly get the taste of beet, and that earthy tone into the pasta makes it so unique in taste.
- Fresh homemade beet pasta in 3 minutes - with the help of the Phillips Pasta Maker machine the process easy and effortless. You get fresh homemade pasta in 3 minutes!
ingredients for this recipe
Beet
Beetroot can be found anywhere in your local grocery stores and market. You can find beet in a range of colours like: red, purple, yellow, and white. Sometimes even in stripes of red and white!
Nevertheless, beets are also super nutritional as well. Beets are great for blood by lowering blood pressure and great for athletes by building more muscle power. After a workout, I love making a beet and banana smoothie to repair and build muscles.
Also, beet has a very earthy tone in taste. It's subtle, but the taste is there. Beets are best enjoyed if there's a tangy taste to go with them, and that's why this lemon garlic alfredo sauce is perfect! The lemon tang brings out the beet's natural taste, and it's the ideal partner in crime for this dish!
Flour
For this recipe, it calls for all-purpose flour. I use all-purpose flour all the time for fresh homemade pasta.
However, if you want more of a chew, you can use bread flour. Bread flour has a higher percentage of protein so it's tenser, ergo the chewiness of the pasta. You also have the option to mix all-purpose flour with bread flour.
Lemon
Meyer lemon or Eureka lemon is fine for this recipe. I also love adding the lemon peel into the pasta for a strong punch of lemon flavour. Just remember to take a mild soap and a scrub to clean the outside of the lemon before you pell the skin.
When I squeeze the juice of the lemon, I always have a strainer or a second hand to catch the seeds of the lemon. Biting into a lemon seed is unpleasant because the taste of the seed is very bitter. So watch out!
Garlic
I like using a to grate my garlic into the sauce. Grating gets the most flavour from your ingredients and grating garlic is something I always do. You can finely mince the garlic as well. It is up to you how strong of a garlic flavour you want.
Just be careful when you cook the garlic. If you mince the garlic, the cooking time is very short before it burns.
Cream Cheese
For cream cheese, I always use Philadelphia Cream Cheese. It's not expensive and the quality is always great.
This recipe doesn't require the cream cheese to be at room temperature. It will be melted in the pot of hot milk and butter, so there is no temperature preference for the cream cheese.
Parmesan Cheese
I grate my fresh gourmet parmesan cheese into this recipe. I don't like the remade in a bottle of fake parmesan cheese. Having a block of fresh gourmet parmesan cheese is a must in your fridge! It has a nice nutty flavour that artificial parmesan cheese can't mimic.
Profession Tips for this recipe
Pro Tip #1: juice the beet or blend it?
For this fresh beet pasta, you have two options as to how to add beet juice into the pasta.
You have the option to juice the beet and add the concentrated juice into the pasta. The colour always comes out more vibrant and stronger.
Second option is to add cooked beet into a food processor with a little bit of its juice and blend it. Make sure you blend it on high until it is smooth with NO small chunks. I like using this option more because when you juice the beet, you take out all the fiber from the root. I like the fibre to help with digestion and there is not texture difference.
The recipe here I'll be using the second method which is blending the beet in a food processor and adding it to the pasta maker machine.
Pro Tip #2: Use the Phillips Pasta Maker machine
This machine is one of my kitchen tool essential machines. It's always on my countertop because I use it very often!
For this recipe, I will be using this machine. It's great because I can make fresh pasta in 3 minutes! You can change the disk, therefore, change the shapes of the pasta. It's a lot of fun. Kids love using it as well because it's simple and safe.
If you have the extra cash, you can invest in the upgraded version of this machine. It is the Phillips Advance Automatic Pasta and Noodle Maker Plus with 8 Interchanable Disks.
The difference with the new version is that it has a scale installed into the machine to weigh your ingredients, and has more disk options than the previous version. Also, you can change the time of kneading the dough as well.
Pro Tip #3: Add your favourite protein to the pasta
This recipe is vegetarian but if you like grilled chicken, shrimp, or beef, it's an easy add-on. Because this recipe is simple and delicious, adding any other protein to this pasta will make it more hearty and filling.
Make it your own, and add any of your favourite proteins on top. Just make a little bit more sauce so you can drizzle this tasty lemon garlic alfredo sauce on top!
Fresh Beet Pasta and Lemon Garlic Alfredo Sauce
Equipment
- high speed blender
- Phillips Pasta and Noodle Maker
Ingredients
Beet Pasta
- 1 medium size beet root
- 2 eggs
- 550 g all purpose flour
- 7 g salt
Lemon Garlic Alfredo Sauce
- ½ cup butter
- 3 garlic clove grated
- 1½ cup whole milk
- 1 8oz cream cheese
- 2 tsp sea salt
- ½ lemon juice
- lemon zest
- ¼ cup parmesan cheese grated
- black pepper
Instructions
Beet Pasta
- Peel the skin off the beet and cut it in half. fill a small pot with water and put the beets in. cover it with a lid and cook it for 10 minutes. Let it cool, but reserve the water.
- Place the beet within a high-speed blender with ½ cup of its reserved water. Blend on high until it is a smooth smoothie. set aside.
- On a measuring scale, put a medium size container, and turn it on. Make sure it says 0g. Add 2 eggs to the container and fill the container up with beet juice until it reaches 216g. Set aside.
Phillips Pasta machine
- take out the Phillips pasta and noodle maker. Make sure you have the spaghetti disk attached to the ends. Open the lid, and put in the flour and salt. Close the lid.
- Turn the machine on and press ‘Start.’ Slowly pour in the beet and egg liquid.
- Let the machine knead the dough for 3 minutes. It will beep once it is ready to extrude the pasta.Â
- Cut the pasta when it is about 20-25cm long.
- Lay the fresh pasta on a baking sheet, and don’t overlap the pasta on top with more.Â
Cooking the Beet Pasta
- Using a large pot, fill it ¾ full and add 3 tsp of salt (roughly 4L of water). Wait for it to boil.
- Once the water is rapidly boiling, slowly add the fresh pasta to the water. Immediately stir it with chopsticks or something soft that won’t break the pasta apart. Cook for 2 minutes.
- Add the cooked pasta to a bowl of water. Move the noodles in the water around. Rinse and repeat at least once. strain the noodles and place them in a large bowl. Again don’t place more noodles on top of the weight will have the noodles stick together.
Lemon Garlic Alfredo Sauce
- In a medium-size pot, turn heat to medium-high and place butter inside until melted. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes or until soft. Add the milk and cream cheese. Turn the heat to low. Add sea salt.
- Add the fresh beet pasta to the sauce and give it a few good stirs. Add the lemon juice and parmesan cheese. Softly toss the noodle until the cheese is melted and the alfredo sauce is well coated with the pasta.
- Garnish pepper on top. Serve immediately.
