Homemade Fettuccine Alfredo

When I was living in New York I went through a learning phase where all I wanted to do was learn more about cooking. I devoured cook books and anything I could find on cooking science. I took as many cooking classes as I could without going to culinary school. And I think the most valuable classes I took was also one of the most basic: an introduction to sauces. My sauces would always break, gravies would be pasty and I knew nothing about how to balance out the flavor. But after a lot of trial and error, I've become really good with sauces and am really excited to share with you my recipe for Homemade Fettuccine Alfredo.

In making my recipe I tried several that I found online and there were a few tricks and hacks I learned along to way

• If your alfredo is made out of cream cheese, you are doing alfredo wrong
• Use a blend of italian cheeses for the best success
• Not all parmesan is created equal (my first batch didn't melt well and seized up)
• Making a roux first is the easiest way to thicken up a sauce
• To thin a sauce, use some pasta water (it contains starch and salt and will have a beautiful effect on the sauce over regular water)
• Use freshly ground black pepper for the best taste
• Use a microplane to prepare your garlic

I'd like to think of this as a back to basics recipe. It's no frill, it's a classic, but it's so good that it's worth making time and time again. There's many variations to alfredo and I'll probably explore some of those soon but I was really happy with how this sauce came out and wanted to share that on it's own.

I made a double batch of this recipe and truth be told I could have used up all of it right away. I tend to batch cook and use one element, such as alfredo sauce, and make several recipes in a day. I do this so that I can blog more efficiently and also so that I can prep our meals for the week and have some variety. Leftovers are a bit lame when it's the same thing over and over again, but simple substitutions make it new and exciting.

Make it a meal

• Pasta Bolognese
• Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo
• Tortellini Alfredo
• Broccoli Alfredo
• Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo
• Chicken Bacon Carbonara
• See Other Dinner Ideas

Arya's Corner

We don't have a backyard so Arya is a deck cat. She loves chasing the leaves that come down onto the deck and is now adventurous enough to sit on the railing. Yeahhhhh we live on the third floor so maybe I'm not as comfortable with that.

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