I’m a big fan of pasta dishes, and I like experimenting with them. Red sauces are great, but one that always eluded me was the venerable Alfredo sauce.
Of course, the sauce I make — the sauce most Americans make — has basically nothing in common with the original Alfredo sauce. The original was little more than butter and cheese, emulsified into a rich coating for noodles when prepared at the table. I’ve even heard that Italians scoff at the typical American Alfredo.
For a long time, I struggled to make an Alfredo sauce that was any good at all. Every attempt I made ended up with some kind of problem. Maybe it wouldn’t coat the noodles. Maybe it was thickened with flour and ended up tasting like it. Maybe it was bland and flavorless. I’ve gone through it all.
Finally, though, I’ve ended up on a recipe that doesn’t have any of those issues. It’s rich and cheesy. It doesn’t have any flour in it, but it’s still nice and thick, and it coats the noodles (or whatever else you use it on) very well. It is, however, decidedly not a healthy recipe. It’s full of cheese, fatty cream, and butter. All the best things are, don’t you think?
This recipe is quite quick and easy to prepare. You spend almost as much time grating cheese as you do cooking the sauce. As such, I’m leaving this recipe post pretty short. I’ll probably be referencing it in other posts in the future, so keep an eye out for that.
What can you use this for? Basically anything where you want a Parmesan cheese sauce. I use it on fettuccine most often, but it also works well on other pastas, as a sauce for a chicken mix, and however else you want to use it.
One thing to keep in mind is that this recipe will make more sauce than you might want to use right away. You can store it in the fridge and heat it back up later just fine. I recommend the stove top for re-heating, but it probably does just fine in a microwave too. You’ll make about two cups of sauce, maybe a little less. I generally end up using half to two-thirds of that in a given recipe.
Easy Cheesy Alfredo Sauce
Equipment
- Sauce Pan
- Rubber Spatula
- Cheese Grater
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp Unsalted Butter
- 2 Cloves Garlic Minced
- 4 Oz Cream Cheese
- ¾ Cup Heavy Cream
- ¾ Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese Get the good cheese, not the green tube
- 3 Tbsp Mozzarella
- ⅛ Tsp Seasoned Salt
- ⅛ Tsp Black Pepper
- ⅛ Tsp Nutmeg
Instructions
- In a medium sauce pan, add the butter and garlic. Turn on medium heat to melt the butter and start to soften the garlic.
- Add the cream cheese and stir as it starts to melt.
- Slowly add some cream, a little at a time, stirring or whisking to combine. Continue until all of the cream has been added and the cream cheese is melted.
- Stir in the Parmesan and continue stirring/whisking until combined and smooth.
- Add the spices (seasoned salt, nutmeg, pepper) and the mozzarella, again stirring until combined.