This healthy cheesy protein pasta is vegan and gluten free. One serving contains 41 grams of protein, and this recipe serves two. It’s also high in calcium from the sesame seeds and beans. As nutritional yeast contains all nine essential ammo acids, it provides complete plant protein.

The creamy, velvety cheese sauce is also nut free, oil free and grain free. Try this quick and easy vegan cheesy protein pasta today.

Cheesy Protein Pasta Video

Play on YouTube.

I’m using red lentil fusilli in this recipe. This lentil pasta cooks in about 9 minutes and is firm after cooking, unlike many gluten-free pastas. It’s Made from 100% red lentil flour.

Bean and lentil pasta were only available at health food shops up until recently, but now they are quite inexpensive and available from regular stores. In the UK the pasta works out at 35p a portion! It’s easy to cook and tastes very similar to traditional wheat pasta.

Here I use sesame seeds in this recipe rather than any plant milk. You can use your favourite plant milk and omit the water if you prefer. When you’re using whole sesame seeds, always place them closest to the blade so that they get completely broken up and combined.

Turmeric helps to give a golden colour and add nutrition to this recipe. You don’t taste it but feel free to leave it out if you prefer. A pinch a black pepper helps activate the turmeric and make it more digestible.

You can use regular gluten-free pasta if you prefer but for this recipe to have a high protein content do you need to use bean or lentil pasta.

Normal gluten-free pasta is often a mixture of potato, corn and rice flour. While it’s gluten free, it’s full of refined carbohydrates and some stabilisers, so it’s not something that I consider healthy and nutrient dense.

Use any white bean that you prefer for this I often use cannellini/ haricot/navy or white kidney beans. Either freshly cooked or tinned work just as well but I tend to use tinned is this is a quick and straightforward recipe.

Other bean/lentil pasta that I can recommend are mung bean, black bean, chickpea and green lentil. Let me know in the comments below or on social media @nestandglow if you have tried any other bean or lentil pasta.

If you want this to be gluten free but also healthy and can’t find bean pasta then I recommend buckwheat pasta.

Buckwheat pasta is easy to cook, but you do need to keep an eye on it and rinse it under cold water as soon as it’s cooked to stop it falling to pieces and becoming one doughy blob.

My number 1 tip for all gluten free pasta is to drain and cover with cool water for a few seconds to stop it turning into mush. The pasta will still be warm and hold it’s shape.