Holiday Fettuccine Alfredo Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you make fettuccine Alfredo taste better? ›

Fresh herbs will brighten and freshen the flavor of the sauce. Resnick suggests using parsley, thyme, oregano, or chervil, or mixing and matching depending on what you like. To use them, finely mince 2 tablespoons of your chosen herbs. Heartier herbs like thyme or oregano can be added in to simmer with the sauce.

In Italy, Christmas Eve is often a day when no meat is eaten. So a pasta dish such as fettuccine is a traditional option.

Use Cornstarch

This advice will leave you with the creamiest Alfredo sauce you've ever tasted. Here's how to make it: In a bowl, whisk together equal parts of cornstarch and water—about 2 tablespoons of each for four servings of pasta and sauce. Add 2 teaspoons of the slurry to the Alfredo sauce.

Mix the cornstarch with some cold water to create a smooth slurry, then whisk it into the sauce while cooking over medium-high heat for a few minutes. Add all-purpose flour. Another very common thickening agent that will give your Alfredo sauce a creamy texture.

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.

In Italy, Christmas Eve dinner is traditionally lighter with no meat and a lot of seafood, while the Italian-American meal has evolved into much more of a feast. Bring on the sword fish, tuna, salmon, octopus salad, smelts, calamari, spaghetti with clam sauce and the famous Italian classic—salted cod, known as baccalà.

Christmas dinner is a meal traditionally eaten at Christmas. This meal can take place any time from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day itself.

One of the most common drinks to be sipped at Christmas is Mulled Wine. Since medieval times, good old Mulled Wine has been the drink to warm up the body at winter time. In Italy, this drink is also known as Vin Brulé, although depending on how you take this drink, there's are difference.

Fettuccine Alfredo is a richer version of the standard Italian fettuccine al burro ('fettuccine with butter'), also called pasta burro e parmigiano ('pasta with butter and Parmesan cheese'). It is a kind of pasta in bianco, that is, without added sauce.

Classically the sauce is made with butter, grated parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper. Hot starchy pasta water is also added when tossing it with pasta to bring about more creaminess.

Can I use grated parmesan instead of shredded Alfredo sauce? ›

The light, fine shavings will more easily melt into the hot cream to make a smooth sauce. You can also buy pre-grated fresh Parmesan — be sure it has a powdery texture, not shredded. Pecorino Romano cheese is much sharper and saltier — I don't recommend it for Alfredo sauce.

You can make the jar sauce better by adding a bit of brandy or sherry, perhaps green onion tops chopped fine to add a fresh taste, adding a bit of chopped garlic sauteed in butter, then top it off with cayenne and parmesan cheese.

Of course we are skipping the butter to make Alfredo sauce and using extra virgin olive oil instead.

One of the main reasons that store-bought alfredo sauces fall flat is for a lack of spices. Basic alfredo doesn't have much more than pepper, salt, and maybe garlic, and adding additional seasonings has the potential to turn a bland sauce around.

How do you fix bland pasta sauce? Put in oregano,basil, thyme, garlic powder,red pepper flakes, a pinch of salt and pepper!

The water you cook pasta in should be as salty as the Mediterranean sea – add about 2 teaspoons of fine grain sea salt per litre (33 ounces) of water. That way your pasta has some flavour before you add the sauce – so you need to work less hard to make everything taste amazing.

The way you'll do it is by putting all your leftovers in a small saucepan, then heat it on medium-low heat. Then, add in a splash of milk or cream when it starts to heat up. Give it a good stir with a wooden spoon and increase to medium heat. It will start to simmer, but don't let it bubble any more than that.