Make a batch of homemade alfredo sauce in as little as ten minutes! This from-scratch sauce is rich, creamy, and the perfect addition to a plate of your favorite pasta.
Are you an alfredo sauce fan? If so, you'll love how easily this homemade alfredo sauce comes together. All you need is one pan, a few simple ingredients, and about ten minutes!
This alfredo turns out creamy, cheesy, and filled with flavor. It will rival your favorite restaurant's from-scratch alfredo sauce!
Toss in some cooked pasta for a quick meal. It also makes a great dipping sauce for breadsticks or garlic bread. If your dinner recipe call for a jar of alfredo sauce, replace it with this.
Ingredients and substitutions
Since this recipe requires so few ingredients, I don't have many substitutions to offer.
- Heavy cream - The base of the sauce. It adds a rich, thick, and smooth texture without the need for thickening agents like flour or cornstarch. Thinner dairy products like milk will ruin the recipe and cause the sauce to turn out very thin and watery. Heavy cream (sometimes labeled as heavy whipping cream) is a must.
- Parmesan cheese - Another must for this recipe, and it needs to be freshly grated from a block. This part is so important that I dedicated an entire section to cheese grating below!
- Garlic - If you don't have garlic cloves on hand, they can be substituted with garlic powder (added with your other seasonings). However, fresh garlic adds exceptional flavor to your sauce that you won't get from garlic powder.
- Italian seasoning - Can be store bought or a homemade blend. If you don't have Italian seasoning, substitute with equal parts of any dried Italian herbs you have on hand, like oregano, basil, sage, marjoram, rosemary, or thyme.
Grating cheese
Why is freshly grated parmesan cheese a must? - Pre-shredded cheeses (or green canisters of cheese) are coated in anti-clumping powders. When melted, these powders make your sauce grainy. To prevent a grainy or clumpy sauce, grate the cheese yourself. It only takes about a minute and makes a significant difference in the texture and flavor of your sauce.
How to grate cheese - Parmesan cheese can be grated with a variety of kitchen tools, like a microplane (what I'm using in the photo above), a box grater, or a handheld grater. If you're feeling fancy and want to grate a lot of cheese, invest in a rotary cheese grater!
Grating tools on Amazon:
- Microplane Classic Fine Grater/Zester
- Cuisinart Boxed Grater
- OXO Good Grips Handheld Grater
- Classic Rotary Cheese Grater-NSF Restaurant Certified
Storage
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but alfredo sauce doesn't keep well as a leftover. Cream based sauces do not freeze well and alfredo sauce in particular does not reheat well.
Why does this happen? The emulsion breaks. An emulsion is formed between the liquids and the fats during the cooking process that breaks when reheated in a microwave or stove top.
This leaves you with a separated sauce - one part is gloopy/cheesy and the other part is pure butter. Not very appetizing!
The great part about homemade alfredo sauce is that it only takes 10 minutes to make. You can make as little or as much as you need for a single sitting.
To adjust the servings in this recipe, hover over the serving size and use the bar to adjust how many servings you'd like to prepare.
Frequently asked questions
Alfredo sauce made with heavy cream, like this recipe, is a modernized American version of the classic. This is the type of sauce you're likely to find at chain Italian-style restaurants in the United States. While delicious, it is not the same as an Italian fettuccine alfredo.
A classic Italian alfredo is made with freshly cooked pasta (and some pasta water), parmesan cheese, and butter. As the parmesan cheese melts, it emulsifies the starchy pasta liquids and butter to create a creamy sauce.
The classic dish may also go by the name fettuccine al burro, or "fettuccine with butter".
No. This recipe relies on the thick, rich texture of heavy cream to make an alfredo sauce without added thickeners like flour or cornstarch. If you don't have heavy cream on hand, I recommend searching for a cheese sauce that's made with the ingredients you do have on hand.
If your sauce gets too hot, the cheese can seize up and separate. To prevent this, remove your cream from the heat before adding the cheese, then stir until the cheese has melted. If needed, add your pan back over low heat only to help the cheese melt.
Recommended
📖 Recipe
Homemade Alfredo Sauce
Ingredients
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup heavy cream
- ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon salt, or more to taste
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1.5 cups freshly grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- In a sauté pan over medium heat, add butter. Once melted and bubbling, add minced garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add heavy cream, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Stir and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until sauce has thickened slightly.
- Remove the pan from the heat and add parmesan cheese, stirring until melted. Serve immediately.
If serving with pasta
- Reserve ½ cup of the pasta water before draining your cooked pasta. Then, stir the reserved water into your sauce when adding the pasta to make your sauce extra creamy and silky.
Equipment Recommendations
Notes
- Recipe makes enough sauce to coat 8 ounces of pasta (uncooked weight).
- Alfredo sauce does not reheat well - sauce will separate (the emulsion breaks) when reheated in the microwave or on the stove top. I recommend only making enough sauce for one sitting.
- Substituting heavy cream with half & half or milk will make your sauce very thin and less creamy - I do not recommend using any dairy other than heavy cream for this recipe.
- Pre-shredded cheeses contain anti-clumping powders that when melted, will make your sauce grainy. I do not recommend using pre-shredded cheese.
I made this sauce for the first time today for my very Italian husband! It is phenomenally the best Alfredo I have ever eaten, and that includes his Nona Brunetta’s! (Don’t tell her we said that, please.) Easy to make and delicious.