The Best Creamy Pasta Recipes - The Best Blog Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep creamy pasta creamy? ›

Add a spoonful of pasta water to help thin the sauce if you want and keep it sticking, because starch helps it to stick and will also keep it as creamy as possible. Stir it often so that it won't stick but will stay creamy. Just before serving it, add a small pat of butter and a hint of cream on top. That's it.

Wait until the water comes to a rapid, aggressive boil before adding your pasta. Throwing in the pasta too early when the water isn't hot enough can result in some sticky, gummy noodles. Patience, friend. Stir right away — and every couple minutes.

Fettuccine. This flat, ribbon noodle is most known for pairing with Alfredo sauce. The thick, creamy mixture perfectly clings to the fettuccine, making it a great partner for any smooth and/or creamy sauces.

Cheese and dairy give sauces creaminess while butter and oil give them richness. You also don't need to use a lot — these are just for finishing and rounding out the flavors in a sauce. Whole Milk or Heavy Cream: Add a splash and let the sauce simmer for a few minutes to thicken.

What usually works for me is to heat it up slowly in a pot or a pan with a splash of milk or cream and stirring frequently. The milk fats are separating from the milk solids when it's being reheated. Reheating slowly over the stove, hot water bath or even in the oven will help keep from separating.

To be sure that your pasta is cooked correctly, it is enough to follow a few, simple rules. To begin with, you should keep in mind the right quantities. In Italy, the golden rule for cooking pasta is 1, 10, 100 or 1 liter of water, 10 grams of salt for every 100 grams of pasta.

Restaurants build an aromatic base for their sauces

Pasta water isn't the only base ingredient that restaurants add to their sauces. According to Ferraro, the bases for sauces are hard-won flavor bombs that take effort and planning to perfect. "Building flavor is an important thing, and it takes time," he said.

Tubular shapes like penne and ziti are perfect with hearty, thick sauces like ragu. Rigate, the ridged ones, capture even more sauce. Wide, flat pastas like pappardelle are ideal for sopping up creamy sauces. Generally, the wider the noodle, the heavier the 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.

What pasta holds Alfredo sauce best? ›

As a general rule, pair the heartier sauces with the wider noodles: Wide ribbons like pappardelle pair well with rich, meaty sauces while the thinner flat noodles, like fettuccine or linguine, are best paired with simple cream sauces like Alfredo or delicate proteins like seafood.

Add more cream to keep the sauce from separating

Bring the sauce to room temperature first, then pour it into a pan and gradually raise the stove's temperature while adding cream bit by bit. The fat in the cream helps prevent the sauce from separating.

You don't properly cool the pasta.

"It's not wrong, and I have done it before in the past [but] to make a more creamy pasta dish after cooking the pasta, drain it, and cool it on a sheet tray," he advises.

Oil trick

This is as simple as adding a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil before putting it in the refrigerator. Do not forget to stir well so that the oil is impregnated throughout the pasta and does not remain at the bottom of the container.

Double Boiler/Hot Water Bath

The heat from the boiling water provides indirect heat for the food in the pan above. This method is a great way to keep noodles warm because they are never touching direct heat, which can cause them to burn to the pan.

Yes it will be fine under refridgeration for a few days at least, before the pasta starts to dry out. To reheat, place in a pot/pan & heat. If using a microwave, fill a microwave safe cup with hot water & place it in the microwave along with the pasta & heat, stopping, checking & mixing regularly.

Luckily, it's also very easy to freeze sauces. Most sauces freeze well, including tomato-based sauces, meat sauces and even creamy alfredo and bechamel sauces. Freezing is one of the easiest methods for persevering freshly made sauces in your kitchen.