Pasta will always be my favourite comfort food! And this is definitely one of my favourite winter recipe. I love how the sauce is super creamy , packed with flavour and super filling. It might seem a bit of an odd combination but butternut squash and chestnuts actually work perfectly well together and thanks to their buttery consistency they create a super silky sauce without the addition of any cream or butter.
I love serving this pasta with some extra crumbled up chestnut and a generous sprinkle of nutritional yeast.

Serves 2

For the sauce:

1/2 small butternut squash peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
180 gr of cooked chestnut
a generous handful of fresh baby spinach
1 small white onion or 1/2 of a large one cut into quarters
2 cloves of garlic skin on
1 teaspoon of miso paste
2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast + extra for sprinkling
a dash of unsweetened almond milk
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

Pasta of your choice: I went for brown rice tagliatelle

Place the chopped butternut squash, garlic cloves and the onion into a roasting tray. Drizzle a bit of olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the butternut squash is soft.
In a food processor add the cooked butternut squash and onion, squish out the garlic out of their skin and add them in as well. Add the cooked chestnuts, reserving few to use at the end to top the pasta, nutritional yeast, miso paste, black pepper and almond milk. Blitz everything until you have a creamy consistency. Add more almond milk for a runnier consistency.

Cook the pasta according to the cooking instructions, drain it and place it back into the pan. Add the baby spinach and a drizzle of olive oil (to prevent from sticking) Give it a good stir until the spinach have wilted. Add in the butternut squash sauce and mix it all together. Serve straight away with some crumbled up chestnuts, nutritional yeast and black pepper.
If you have any sauce leftover you can store it into an airtight container in the fridge for few days.