How To Make Alfredo Sauce: Delicious 5 Ingredient Recipe (2024)

Alfredo sauce-the Italian-American creamy, cheesy, and buttery sauce, that warms your soul with the very first bite. It is a plain but tasty, white sauce that’s generally used over fettuccine noodles. It is made from butter, heavy whipped cream, and parmesan cheese. The classic alfredo sauce provides you with so much comfort when paired with pasta, various proteins, and sauteed vegetables.

An excellent meal helper for when you have a busy week coming up: make-ahead homemade Alfredo sauce!

Let us discuss how to make Alfredo Sauce at home. This elegant sauce is ready in 10 minutes. Can be refrigerated for a week and reheated quickly. Serve it with pasta, or your favourite protein, or over vegetables.

So, if you are one of those Alfredo lovers, you are in the right place. Read on as we discuss how to make alfredo sauce at home.

What is Alfredo Sauce?

Traditional Alfredo is a form of cream sauce created by Alfredo di Lelio, a Roman restaurateur. The original dish was an extra-buttery variant loaded with Parmesan cheese used to make fettuccine noodles.

It has, however, evolved over the years-garnished with heavy cream, garlic, chicken, and other ingredients. This American Alfredo sauce is a bit more creamy and delicious. Loaded with cream cheese and flavours, it blends into a thick creamy sauce.

Although the traditional style is great, adding some flavours and Italian seasoning makes Alfredo sauce taste even better.

Homemade alfredo sauce recipe goes well for tossing with pasta, topping grilled chicken breast, spreading on pizza, or whatever else as per choice.

Despite its rich and deep taste, this delicious alfredo sauce recipe needs just a few ingredients, which are also handy. The reason people love alfredo sauces is, they can be perfect with a fulfilling vegetarian dish, while also paired with your favourite protein. Most amazingly, it only takes some 8-10 minutes to whip up a batch for an indulging dinner tonight.

Why Homemade Alfredo Sauce?

Although there are various brands of canned alfredo sauce available in the market, opting for homemade alfredo sauce is a great choice. The alfredo sauce made at home is made of all the fresh ingredients. In addition to all the healthy ingredients, you can even add seasonings and new flavours.

• Healthier: No doubt, the bottled alfredo sauce is full of preservatives and added chemicals to improve the shelf life. Plus, the calorie content (110 calories and 10 grams of fat in a serving) of the canned sauce cannot be ignored. This does not contribute towards a healthy lifestyle. Thus, as a healthy option, the best alfredo sauce is made at home with fresh ingredients.
• Fresh and Flavorsome: The packed Alfredo cannot be compared with the homemade alfredo sauce made with fresh ingredients. Although many brands guarantee using the best ingredients in their canned goods it still cannot be compared with the sauce you made with all fresh and flavoured ingredients. Furthermore, you can even use different ingredients and prepare them for as many servings as you want.
• Easy to make: The homemade alfredo sauce is incredibly easy to prepare. Using only a handful of ingredients this homemade treat comes together within minutes.
• For future use: When stored properly in jars or air-tight containers, homemade alfredo sauce lasts up to a week in the fridge.

The sauce can be made more flavoursome and delicious by adding some minced garlic or garlic powder, lemon zest, salt, pepper, or all of the above. Plus, you owe it to yourself to eat the best Alfredo sauce with some pasta.

Best quality ingredients and some extra effort make it savoury till the last bite. Once you learn how to make Alfredo Sauce on your own, you’ll never want to go back to the canned sauce.

5 Ingredients required to make alfredo sauce

All the ingredients required to make the alfredo sauce contributes something unique to the sauce. Thus, all the ingredients are important.

1. Grated parmesan cheese: 2 cups

Freshly grated parmesan cheese is the most important ingredient. Parmesan cheese, grated in advance doesn’t melt well in the recipe. So, always go for fresh parmesan cheese, grated while preparing and serving the sauce.

2. Butter: 4-5 tbsp

Salted or unsalted butter (depends on your taste). Just keep in mind that the parmesan cheese is a bit salty. So, it is advised to avoid salted butter to maintain saltiness.

3. Heavy whipping cream: 1 cup

Heavy cream with full fat provides a rich creamy savoury flavour to the sauce. Good-quality heavy cream enhances the flavour

4. Cream cheese

Cream cheese is required to add thickness to the alfredo sauce. Cream cheese offers a smooth, thick texture to the sauce.

5. Garlic: 1-2 cloves

For best seasoning, crush or mince fresh garlic cloves. Fresh garlic adds an amazing aroma to the sauce. You can add garlic powder also.

How To Make Alfredo Sauce Taste Even Better

Other optional ingredients: Cooked vegetables like mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, and spinach can make the sauce even more healthy and tasty. Other spices like onion powder, oregano, basil, and/or Italian seasoning blend can give a unique flavour to the sauce.

pre-cooked proteins like Italian sausage, ham, shrimp, crab, bacon, or chicken can add more flavour and protein content to the sauce.

How To Make Alfredo Sauce At Home

• Melt 4 to 5 tbsp of butter on a medium saucepan at medium heat. Let the butter gain a moderate temperature and a smooth consistency. Now add minced garlic to the pan and cook it in the butter. Saute garlic until it becomes lightly golden and fragrant.

• Add cream cheese and heavy whipping cream into the saute pan. Continue whisking the blend at low heat to prevent burning or sticking of ingredients. Slowly stir until cream comes to a boil.
• Add the freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Keep stirring and let the cheese melt properly.

• Heat until simmering. Slowly stir the mixture continuously as it gets to a light boil. Let it gentle simmer (but not boil) at low heat to get a thicker blend.

• Whisk in the seasonings. Whisk constantly for about one minute at low heat to cook the sauce properly.

• Add salt and pepperas per your taste.
• The sauce is ready to serve.

Nutritional Information

Classic Alfredo Sauce

Servings Per Recipe: 2
Calories:714.4

Can The Alfredo Sauce Be Frozen?

For days you don’t want to cook from scratch, freeze a batch and use it without settling for the canned. Frozen Alfredo lasts for 3-4 months. So, it’s a good-to-go option, if you don’t want to make it regularly. Just freeze, reheat and it is ready to be added to any dish.

Steps To freeze Alfredo Sauce

• Cool the sauce completely.
• Place the homemade sauce in freezer-safe bags or airtight containers.
• Put it in the freezer. It can be stored for more than 3 months.

The creamy and smooth texture may be affected when you reheat it, but it will still be creamy and tasty. You can always add more seasoning to make it flavoursome.

Reheating Alfredo Sauce

Alfredo sauce will thicken as it cools in the fridge. This can be treated by reheating it in a pan on a low flame. Some water or milk can be added to reduce the density of the sauce.

Reheating the sauce from the fridge, or an already frozen one should be done by whisking slowly and continuously on low heat. This is to avoid lump formation, and sticking or burning of the sauce. This will also prevent the hardening of the cheese, to maintain the consistency of the sauce.

How To Make Alfredo Sauce Easily

Since you’ve learned how to make alfredo sauce at home, these tips will help you avoid some mistakes.

• Make sure you don’t overheat, as it may give a smoky flavour to the creamy delicacy. Keep the flame at low or medium heat, especially when you melt butter.
• Always use good quality Parmesan cheese which should be grated just before serving.
• If alfredo sauce turns thick while making or reheating, add and stir some milk, broth, or water until its texture is maintained.
• On the contrary, if you want to make the alfredo sauce thicker, you can add more parmesan cheese. To avoid using extra cheese, just let it bubble on a low flame to achieve the desired density.
• You can also use other cheese like–cheddar, swiss, cottage, or romano cheese–for that extra flavour of the cheese.

How To Make Alfredo Sauce In Different Ways

Healthier Alfredo Sauce

Since loads of heavy cream and cheese are poured into the sauce, its fats and calorie count increases. This is not good for a healthy lifestyle. That’s why a healthier recipe without using heavy cream, butter, or cheese, is in demand.

How To Make Alfredo Sauce Healthy

• Olive Oil: Use olive oil instead of butter to reduce excessive calorie intake.
• Avoid extra cheese and cream: Instead of cream cheese, more protein-rich and less saturated-fat-containing cheese alternatives can be used.
• Greek YoghurtHeavy cream can be replaced by Greek yoghurt It provides perfect creamy flavour without any fats and is thus a healthier option than the heavy cream-loaded sauce.
• Broth: For extra flavours broth (chicken or veggie for Flava) can be used.
• Milk: For consistency of the sauce, milk can be used instead of heavy cream. Even, whole milk can be avoided by using almond milk or cow milk.
• Gluten-free: Since no flour or roux has been used, this alfredo sauce recipe is believed to be gluten-free. Though roux can be added to try something different.
• Skip salt: Because parmesan and cottage cheese both ingredients are salty enough.

Thus, the Healthy version of Alfredo Sauce uses healthy ingredients like milk and broth, without compromising with the rich creamy flavour. And that too, in limited calories.

These small and easy changes will ensure healthy intake by avoiding fatty ingredients like cream, cheese, and butter.

How to make Alfredo Sauce: The Vegan Way

This recipe can teach you how to make alfredo sauce without dairy products. A deliciously rich and creamy sauce for a vegan choice.

It’s simple, dairy-free, oil-free, just a few ingredients, and amazingly delicious and savoury sauce for that favourite pasta recipe.

Required ingredients:

• Cashew
• Olive Oil
• Fresh Garlic
• Onion
• Nutritional yeast
• Lemon
• Salt and pepper

How To Make Alfredo Sauce Without Dairy Products

1. Blend raw cashews with nutritional yeast and make a smooth paste.
2. Add olive oil to the saucepan and heat it low.
3. Now, saute the onions on a low and slow flame until they turn golden and tender.
4. Now, add the freshly minced garlic and cook until brown.
5. Add the sauteed onion-garlic mixture to the paste and blend it until the sauce is fine and thick enough.
6. Serve this healthy sauce over pasta and other dishes.

A notable point here is no use of vegan butter or oil, which are undoubtedly unhealthy. Instead, olive oil along with raw cashews was used which provided the sauce with a perfect creamy flavour and thickness.

Nutritional yeast is used to avoid Parmesan cheese which is the main ingredient of regular alfredo sauce. It provides a cheesy flavour with the sauce. Garlic enhances the taste and aroma. Lemon juice adds a tangy flavour

Thus, vegan alfredo sauce is a delicious dairy-free meal helper which is oil-free too.

Does It Taste Like Alfredo Sauce?

This vegan Alfredo sauce tastes almost like the one made with heavy cream.

Purely based on vegan-friendly ingredients, this sauce is creamy enough and toothsome. The creaminess is maintained by using cashews and nutritional yeast, which enhances the taste of vegan alfredo sauce.

How To Make Alfredo Sauce: Keto Style

The homemade alfredo sauce recipe mentioned above is low in carbs. Although it is loaded with rich cream and cheese, alfredo sauce is keto-friendly.

This makes everyone’s favourite alfredo sauce a delicious option, even for those on a keto diet. So, you need not worry about the carbs count and just enjoy the sauce with your favourite recipes.

Recipes With Alfredo Sauce

Let’s now delve into various ways of how to make Alfredo sauce more delicious with various delicacies. From fettuccine to a casserole, there are so many dishes to be seasoned with Alfredo. The tasty options that make the most of this creamy, cheesy pasta sauce include:

• Fettuccine Alfredo: Undoubtedly, the most famous option. Fettuccine is the reason behind the fame of Alfredo sauce. Pasta becomes more toothsome when homemade Alfredo is tossed with freshly prepared fettuccine noodles.

• Alfredo Pizza:Alfredo sauce is used instead of marinara or tomato pizza sauce. A soft and thin pizza crust topped with creamy alfredo sauce and other toppings make alfredo pizza is undeniably delicious.

• Alfredo Dip:A dip made of creamy alfredo served with breadsticks, veggie sticks, pretzels, and more. Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
• Alfredo Casserole:Alfredo can be used as a sauce in preparing casseroles, baked ziti, and white lasagna.

How To Make Alfredo Sauce Fettuccine

One of the most famous and basic pasta recipes using alfredo sauce is Fettuccine Alfredo.

An Italian pasta dish more popular in America is made up of fresh fettuccine cooked nicely in butter and cream.Lastly, the pasta is seasoned with alfredo sauce and freshly grated parmesan.

Let’s know about the details of this great recipe in a lucid manner.

Serves: 4 to 6

Preparation time: 10 min

Cooking time: 10 min

Ingredients

• Fettuccine Noodles
• Butter -1 stick
• Heavy cream – 1 cup
• Grated Parmesan – 2 cups
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Chopped Parsley – 2 tbsp.

Fettuccine Alfredo Recipe

1. First, cook the pasta properly in water. Keep a cup of pasta water for further use.
2. Melt butter in the saucepan over medium heat and add cream.
3. Season with salt, pepper and fresh parsley.
4. Add the cooked pasta to the bowl. Immediately pour the warm butter and cream mixture over pasta.
5. Season with fresh parmesan for cheesy pleasure.
6. For a creamier indulgence, toss the pasta with freshly made alfredo sauce.

Cooked and prepared in no time, Alfredo sauce is delicious that goes with many dishes. With these recipes, you can easily learn how to make Alfredo sauce with your twist. Though these are not the only options to have Alfredo sauce with, you can try new dishes for a new twist of flavours.

Last Updated on September 14, 2023 by ritukhare