Penne Pasta in Creamy Vodka Tomato Sauce with Mushrooms – make your own vodka sauce from scratch! Easy, delicious, and so Italian! Perfect weeknight dinner!
Want to make an easy Italian dish at home and impress your family, your friends, or your date? Then, this creamy vodka tomato sauce pasta is the right recipe for you!
This pasta dish is packed with flavors (tomatoes, mushrooms, spices, and don’t forget vodka!), it’s very creamy, with just the right amount of “kick” (spiciness), topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese! The creamy vodka and tomato pasta sauce will please everyone!
Because the sauce is made completely from scratch (no packaged sauces), you can easily convert this recipe to a gluten free one, just by using gluten-free brown-rice penne pasta (I used Tinkyada brand).
Step-by-step photos to illustrate the cooking process:
In a large skillet, saute onion and garlic in olive oil on medium heat, until onion softens. Add tomatoes, vodka, crushed red pepper, basil, oregano – break tomatoes if necessary. Bring the mixture to boil. Reduce to simmer and simmer, covered, occasionally stirring, for about 20 minutes or until sauce thickens. During the last 10 minutes, add mushrooms, and continue to simmer.
At the end of 20 minutes of simmering, mushrooms should be cooked through, and sauce will thicken:
While on low heat, add heavy cream and half & half to the sauce:
Stir everything to ensure even consistency. Add 3/4 teaspoon of salt or more to season the sauce. At this point, your sauce will acquire a nice color just like that:
In the mean time, cook pasta according to package instructions – add cooked and rinsed pasta to the sauce. Reheat the sauce on low heat to heat everything through:
Mushroom Pasta in Creamy Vodka Tomato Sauce - make your own vodka sauce from scratch! Easy, delicious, and so Italian! Perfect weeknight dinner!
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 onion , medium, diced
- 4 garlic cloves , minced
- 14 oz canned tomatoes
- 3/4 cup vodka
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 1 teaspoon basil , if you have fresh basil - use more
- 1/2 teaspoon oregano
- 1 cup mushrooms , sliced
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup Half and Half
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 8 oz penne pasta (for gluten free version, use gluten-free brown-rice penne)
- 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese , freshly shredded
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In a large skillet, saute onion and garlic in olive oil on medium heat, until onion softens.
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Off heat, add tomatoes, vodka, crushed red pepper, basil, oregano - break tomatoes if necessary, and mix everything.
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Bring the mixture gently to medium heat. Reduce to simmer and simmer, on low heat, covered, occasionally stirring, for about 20 minutes or until the sauce thickens. During the last 10 minutes, add mushrooms, and continue to simmer for 10 minutes.
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While on low heat, add heavy cream and half & half to the sauce and stir everything to ensure even consistency. Add 3/4 teaspoon of salt or more to season the sauce.
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In the mean time, cook pasta according to package instructions. Rinse cooked pasta with cold water and drain (this stops pasta from cooking and prevents it from being too mushy). Add cooked and rinsed pasta to the sauce. Reheat the sauce on low heat to heat everything through.
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Serve each plate topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Great recipe – I didn’t make any changes ! Can’t improve on your recipes! I missed the instruction to cover sauce and it came out nice and thick. Thanks Julia
Eileen, you are very welcome! So glad you tried this recipe and liked it! 🙂
This is DELICIOUS!! Hubby and my 2 year old loved it. The only modification I did was substitute the vodka for chicken broth and it was sooo flavourful! Definitely a keeper!
omg anyone who doesn’t adore this recipe is crazy. So delicious and full of flavor. This may be my favorite pasta sauce of all time. I’m not even a mushroom fan, but this sauce is superb. Thank you Julia!
So good and easy! It tasted even better the next day once all the flavors marinated. The mushrooms added such a good taste to it 🙂 Thanks so much for the recipe
I am so glad you enjoyed this recipe! 🙂
This dish was amazing! Got beaucoup brownie points with the girlfriend after making this for her! She hates onions and mushrooms so i substituted zucchini and different colored bell peppers
Thank you, Matt! So happy you enjoyed this recipe. Your substitutions are delicious!
Delicious! I used wine instead of vodka and substituted Greek yogurt and whole milk. I also added some tomato paste I had left over in the fridge and used fresh cherry tomatoes.
Thank you, Melissa, I am so glad you liked this recipe! Your substitutions sound delicious! 🙂
Love this, I have made it many times. I have added hot Italian sausage, chicken and shrimp all where excellent additions
Thank you, Carol. So glad you liked it! Italian sausage sounds delicious in this sauce!
This is a tasty recipe, but I think the directions may have had a typo? I simmered for 20 min with the lid on as directed but questioned the lid being on to thicken. Sauce was very soupy. Next time I’d cut the vodka in half and leave the lid off to thicken
I was thinking the same thing. I thought the sauce was very watery and there was not much flavor to it besides the spiciness from the red pepper. Overall I was disappointed with the lack of flavor. I think adding some sausage to it would help liven it up.
Seriously one of the best dishes I’ve ever made! Hubby said thumbs up!
Hi,
My little 3 year old nephew is currently dairy intolerant. Do you think a milk alternative would work? If so, what would you recommend?
Hi Margaret,
I’m just another fan of Julia’s Pinterest site, was reading the reviews, and I saw your post, with your question as yet unanswered. So I thought I’d reply and hope you see this.
For a great dairy free alternative when you’re cooking or baking, or for making beverages, smoothies, etc. which typically use ice cream or milk or heavy cream, I would try full fat coconut milk. It should work great for Julia’s delicious-looking homemade Vodka sauce recipe as well. I have found it to be a super alternative for heavy cream, 1/2 and 1/2 , and/or milk. There are many brands available of coconut milk, but my favorite full fat coconut milk is one that comes in a little 14 oz. carton from So Delicious. It’s my favorite. It is only 14 oz., but actually is the equivalent of 18 oz. coconut milk. I found it at WalMart. Also, of all the brands of full-fat coconut milk, the So Delicious one is so thick and creamy, it could really almost be classified as a coconut cream. I actually spoke to one of the So Delicious representatives about this and she concurred.
Note: please don’t confuse coconut milk or coconut cream with the very sweet “cream of coconut” which is a totally different thing and used when making pina coladas and other miscellaneous pina colada-flavored recipes.
Coconut cream and full fat coconut milk contain no sugar at all. It’s best to read the ingredient list to be sure. It’s a perfectly suitable substitution even when a recipe calls for for heavy cream. Although, when substituting for heavy cream it would be best to use coconut cream, if you can find it. But full-fat coconut milk is the easiest to find almost anywhere.
As I’m sure you already know, it’s a great dairy free option for your nephew, and anybody who is lactose and/or dairy-intolerant.
Hope this has been helpful.
I created this recipe using full fat coconut milk instead of half and half / heavy cream and it still turned out great! Thanks for the tip!
I am glad full fat coconut milk worked in place of half and half!