The Fundamentals of Easy Alfredo Sauce w/out Butter
Easy Alfredo Sauce consists of 3 ingredients: pasta, cheese, and pasta water. I like cheddar, but you can mix and match the cheese and add wine. It's a lot simpler than a more traditional Alfredo sauce and a great beginner-friendly recipe for those who want to learn how to make a roux without too much worry about the sauce breaking. Plus, the whole process takes less than a half hour, from the time that you start boiling water to serving. It's a great recipe to toss together when you want something a little bit fancier than grating parmesan on top of noodles, but nowhere near as complicated as other sauces.
Equipment
- Large Pot
- Large Saucepan
- Cheese Grater (not optional)
- Stovetop
Ingredients
- 1/2 lbs. pasta (I used linguini)
- 1 c. cheese of choice grated (cheddar, parmesan, blue cheese, etc. see notes above)
- 1/2 c. pasta water (or dry white wine)
- dash salt
- dash pepper
Instructions
Cook Pasta
- Add about 4 inches of water to a large pot and bring to a boil over high heat.
- Cook pasta according to the manufacturer's instructions. This typically entails boiling for about 8-12 minutes, or until barely al dente.
- Remove from heat, but DO NOT DRAIN. You'll need the pasta water in the next step.
Easy Alfredo Sauce
- Meanwhile, grate half of the cheese into a large saucepan over NO HEAT. Do not melt the cheese until the pasta is finished cooking.
- Once the pasta is finished, use a slotted spoon to transfer the pasta to the saucepan with the cheese.You want to do this fairly quickly because you don't want the pasta to overcook. I'd even recommend undercooking it slightly because mixing it in with the sauce will take a little bit of time.
- Bring the saucepan up to medium-low heat and stir vigorously until the cheese is melted. Making sure to add a little bit of pasta water, about 1/8 cup or a couple of spoonfuls at a time.
- Continue to mix in small amounts of cheese and pasta water (or wine) until the sauce is fully incorporated and the consistency that you want.I usually don't even measure the ingredients. I'll just add a little bit of water and a little bit of cheese, mix vigorously, and then adjust the water and cheese levels until the desired consistency is reached. You can make this thinner or thicker depending on your personal taste.Cooking the sauce will also make it thicker. So, it always helps to have some extra pasta water (or wine) on hand, just in case it simmers down too much.
- Top with a dash of salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.
Tips, Tricks, & Notes
- Homemade Alfredo sauce of any kind is not like the store-bought bottles. It will not keep. It will not reheat. This goes for almost all cheese sauces. There's a reason that store-bought macaroni and cheese is powdered and pasta sauces have an abundance of stabilizers in their ingredient lists. A true cheese sauce is not something that will reheat well. It's not that it CAN'T be done very slowly and carefully. But it will take longer than just making the sauce in the first place. So, you're going to be better off just serving it immediately. Or, if you have made it slightly ahead of time, just keep it slowly heating over low heat on the stove. Do not let it reach room temperature and continue to stir in more pasta water (or wine) as it thickens.