Alfredo Sauce Recipe (4 Ingredients!) - Wholesome Yum (2024)

FAQs

What's the main ingredients in Alfredo sauce? ›

Heartier herbs like thyme or oregano can be added in to simmer with the sauce. Add delicate herbs like parsley, basil, or chervil at the end to maintain their delicate, aromatic flavor. Quick tip: Swirl in a bit of leftover pesto to add another herbaceous twist to your Alfredo sauce.

Add heavy whipping cream, a little at a time, whisking to smooth out lumps. Stir in Parmesan and pepper. Remove from heat when sauce reaches desired consistency.

Homemade Alfredo sauce is a popular sauce with Italian-American dishes, but it's actually a secondary French sauce. The base, known in French cuisine as a Mother sauce, is bechamel sauce. By adding cheese and seasonings, it transforms into a velvety smooth, creamy white cheese sauce!

Real alfredo sauce is made with 3 simple ingredients: butter, Parmesan cheese and fresh fettuccine pasta. There is absolutely no cream in this dish (cream is common in most American-style alfredo sauce recipes). Make this dish with my fresh homemade pasta, fresh sourdough pasta or store-bought fresh pasta.

To make homemade heavy whipping cream, melt 1/3 cup of unsalted butter. Let it cool slightly, then blend it with 2/3 cup of whole milk on high for 1-2 minutes until well combined. Refrigerate the mixture for 30 minutes before using.

Milk, heavy cream, or sour cream.

You will get a creamier texture and a bolder flavor. If you want, you can also add some romano cheese to balance the nutty taste of the other dairy ingredients. Chicken broth: another way to improve a jar of Alfredo sauce and give it a rich flavor.

Why Make it at Home? In blind taste tests I found that alfredo sauce made from scratch has a lot more flavor than jarred sauce. The parmesan is a lot more prevalent and the sauce itself is smoother and richer. And this flavor comes at practically no extra cost.

The key ingredient in Alfredo sauce is cheese—generally Parmigiano Reggiano—and lots of it. To thicken Alfredo sauce, simply add more cheese than the amount called for in a recipe until you achieve the consistency you want.

After 12 ounces of fettuccine pasta noodles are finished cooking, reserve 2 cups of the pasta water to include in your sauce. The starchy water is essential to creating a thick, creamy sauce consistency.

How to get Alfredo sauce to stick to pasta? ›

Once the pasta is in the sauce, add pasta water. This is the most vital step in the process. Starchy pasta water doesn't just help thin the sauce to the right consistency; it also helps it cling to the pasta better and emulsify with the fat and cheese you're going to be adding.

Add a little butter or cream or cream cheese, to taste. It will smooth it all out. Make sure you mix it in really well. I have read that you can add 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per cup of sauce to cut acidity, but I wouldn't try that myself.

The five mother sauces are hollandaise, tomato (sauce tomat), bechamel, Espagnole, and veloute. French chef Auguste Escoffier identified the five mother sauces, forever associating them with French cuisine.

White sauce – also known as béchamel – is made with flour, milk, and butter. It's a basic sauce that can be used as a base for other sauces or as a topping for dishes like lasagna. Alfredo sauce, on the other hand, is made with butter, cream, and Parmesan cheese, and has a much richer flavour than white sauce.

If you're feeling fancy, you can call this Alfredo sauce by its classic French name: Mornay sauce. If you're feeling even fancier, you can explain to your adoring dinner companions that a Mornay sauce is just a Bechamel to which you've added a generous amount of cheese.

What's in Alfredo Sauce? Alfredo sauce is made by melting butter, heavy cream, and parmesan cheese together. Unlike other pasta sauces that use tomatoes as a base, alfredo omits vegetables altogether and uses dairy products to achieve its mouth-watering flavor.

Fettuccine Alfredo Ingredients

Butter: This Alfredo sauce starts with two sticks of butter. Cream: The rich sauce calls for almost a cup of heavy cream. Seasonings: The fettuccine Alfredo is simply seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Cheese: You'll need Romano and Parmesan cheeses.

Recipes attributed to Di Lelio include only three ingredients: fettuccine, young Parmesan cheese and butter. Yet there are various legends about the "secret" of the original Alfredo recipe: some say oil is added to the pasta dough; others that the noodles are cooked in milk.

For a garlicky alfredo sauce, saute 1 to 2 cloves minced garlic with the butter before adding the flour. You can use 2% or skim milk for this recipe, but the sauce will be thinner. This recipe can be scaled up to make larger batches. Just keep the ratios of flour, butter, milk, and cheese the same.