I have loved alfredo sauce since I was a little girl, beginning with a shrimp-and-pasta dish I ordered at Red Lobster in maybe fourth grade. My friend Amber and I shared a birthday dinner there. We also wore matching plaid pleated skirts. I used those bendy rods to curl my hair and she wore real Keds. It was awesome. The alfredo flavor and creaminess left a lasting impression on me, and thereafter I ordered it at every single restaurant where I found it on the menu.
Around the third year of our marriage I learned to make it myself and played around with the details until Handsome and I became I am obsessed with the final product. He loves it. He craves it, asks for it, and moans and shivers when it appears on his plate. It is so simple to make but absolutely decadent. Cheesy, salty, thickish, creamy… And it pairs with everything. You can eat it on skinny little angel hair noodles or drizzled over savory filled crepes. It tastes amazing with grilled herbed chicken breast or seafood or, as we enjoyed it tonight, steak.
Alfredo is probably our top choice for pizza sauce at the Lazy W, too. But the way we eat it is a far cry from the jar of thin white sauce you can buy on the pasta aisle. I have to admit, this is also light years ahead of what Red Lobster serves. Here’s our recipe.
A couple of notes: This comes together really quickly, so I suggest prepping the other elements of your meal first. The sauce tends to separate if you let it sit out too long. Also, the butter and two cheeses in the recipe make it pretty salty already, so I do not add any salt. And I am a bonafide salt FREAK. So there you go. Lastly, the following measurements yield about 2 cups of sauce, which because of its richness is more than it sounds like. And the whole thing quadruples well. Not that I ever quadruple anything for two people. That would be crazy.
Basic Alfredo Sauce:
saute a little minced garlic in olive oil
add one stick of real butter and one half cup of heavy whipping cream
heat it almost to bubbly and as it blends and thickens, season with pepper and nutmeg
then remove from heat and add 1/2 cup parmesean cheese and 1/4 cup of mozzarella cheese
stir it all really smooth with a wooden spoon and add immediately to your base dish (noodles, etc.)
And that’s it! Quick and simple.
Tonight I folded the aflredo saucein with about 10 ounces of penne pasta noodles, cooked not even to al dente. The noodles still had lots of bite left in them when I pulled them from their boiling water, because I wanted to finish it all off in the oven while our steaks were cooking. For the final few minutes of baking I sprinkled some extra mozzarella cheese on top. Just because.
How about you? Are you an alfredo aficionado? How else could you serve it with? What yummy recipes from your childhood are still fixtures in your life?
Thanks Mama Kat for a fun prompt! It totally helped me decide our side dish tonight.
