Alfredo Dinner Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What food goes with Alfredo? ›

One of my favorite things is broccoli. I like it added into my Alfredo. Considering the amount of carbs, that the pasta has, green vegetables, asparagus, vericot green beans, or green salads or Caesar salad, are good choices. Fresh is always better especially when it's not over cooked.

Try a simple mix of chopped chicken, carrots, and sliced Cayenne pepper, or add ground beef browned with onions. Some people also add fresh broccoli, but that's not among my personal favorites. Seasonings, spices, and fresh herbs: this is definitely a great way to give your Alfredo sauce a more personal flavor.

Dress up a dull jar of Alfredo with a drizzle of infused oil. Infused oils are olive oils that have been mixed with fresh ingredients and allowed to marinate together to create an aromatic oil. Fresh herbs are commonly infused in olive oil, and garlic and spicy chilies also work well.

Stir in big handfuls of spinach, Kale mushrooms, zucchini, onions, broccoli, spinach, squash, or grape tomatoes after the pasta is cooked. You can also substitute zucchini (zoodles) for the pasta.

Shrimp is perfect for any pasta with a white sauce, as the buttery flavor of the shrimp meshes perfectly with an alfredo or cheese-based sauce.

I always put spinach in my alfredo pasta. The size of the leaves will decrease, which will make the dish look like it has a small amount of veggies but actually it has a reasonable portion. Some others you can try putting in are broccoli, kale, bok choy, peas, zucchini, carrots, mushroom, or asparagus.

To make this healthy vegetable alfredo, I used low fat milk and Parmesan cheese. And then, because I love my veggies, I added in asparagus, cauliflower, sun dried tomatoes, mushrooms, and lemon zest. Then, I piled it high atop some high fiber pasta and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Use the pasta water to create a creamy Alfredo sauce

When you cook your pasta in salted water, what's left over is the salty, starchy water. This water (which Bon Appetit calls “LIQUID GOLD”) is what emulsifies with the fat in your sauce (oil, butter, cheese, etc) and creates that incredibly smooth sauce.

Slowly let the cheese disolve on low heat into the cream mixture. And remove it before it is completely melted but keep stirring this allows the finishing blending to happen without over heatting the cheese which causes that grainy texture. Try this and you'll never go out to a resturant for alfredo again.

Adding that starchy pasta-cooking water to the sauce helps emulsify it, ensuring it's smooth and creamy.

How do I make jar Alfredo sauce thicker? ›

Cornstarch

The easiest way to accomplish this is to mix about a spoonful of cornstarch to 2 spoonfuls of liquid – it could be water or chicken stock or even milk. You will add this mixture, also called a slurry to the sauce and as it starts to cook, the sauce will thicken.

Fresh herbs make all the difference in any pasta sauce, so if you have some lying around, they will really perk up a jarred sauce. Obviously, basil is classic, but thyme, rosemary, sage, marjoram, and oregano are all great in pasta sauce. Fresh parsley also makes anything sing, as do chives.

Best Pasta for Alfredo and Cream Sauces: Fettuccine

Fettuccine Alfredo is a classic for a good reason: fettuccine's wide, thick shape allows you to sop up the maximum amount of creamy sauce with each bite.

Fettuccine is the most classic, but you can use whichever pasta shape you prefer. Heavy cream: Though some recipes exclude heavy cream, we think it makes for the most reliable and dreamy Alfredo sauce.

A typical portion of this decadent dish has 1200 calories, 75 grams of fat, 47 grams of saturated fat and gives you more than half a day's worth of sodium. Yikes! Looking at a recipe, it's not hard to figure out why. The star ingredients are buckets of heavy cream, butter, cheese and mountains of pasta.

It's creamy, comforting, easy to prepare and a worthy addition to your dinner repertoire. Fettuccine Alfredo is a rich, comforting classic.

Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and Italian seasoning are my favorites in Alfredo. If you'd like some acid, a squeeze of lemon juice is a nice flavor add. And if you're looking for even more jazz, try some freshly grated nutmeg.