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Easy Pasta Alfredo – Creamy, comforting, absolutely delicious, and super easy. This is the best and most simple recipe for Alfredo sauce that you will find!
This is one of my absolute favorite sauces to make. Why? Well its incredibly easy, it’s so versatile, and the three main ingredients are butter, cream, and cheese. How can you go wrong with that?! While I used this sauce over pasta, you can make pizzas and flatbreads with it, or even use it as a dip. Thank you, Italy, for blessing the culinary world once again.
What Is Alfredo Sauce
Now, some may argue that Alfredo sauce isn’t really Italian- it’s American. I’ll give you a quick history lesson. This sauce was born in Rome from a man named Alfredo. His sauce was a simple emulsification of butter, Parmesan cheese, and pasta. The version we know and love today includes garlic and cream for a saucier consistency. So I guess we can call this modernized sauce an Italian-American lovechild.
Tips for Making the Perfect Alfredo Sauce
- The sauce will seem thin when you start to mix in the pasta. Don’t worry, just keep tossing. The starches from the pasta will mix into the sauce to give the the perfect consistency. If you use flour or cornstarch to thicken the sauce, it may come out with a gluey consistency once it’s cooled down a bit.
- You can add a few tsp of Italian seasoning, a pinch of nutmeg or red pepper flakes to add some flare to this sauce. Feel free to get creative with seasoning.
- You can adjust the ratio of cream to milk in this recipe to suit how rich you’d like it to be.
More Delicious Pasta Recipes
- Cheesesteak Pasta
- Chicken Tetrazzini
- Chicken Kiev Pasta
- Beef Stroganoff Casserole
- Creamy Garlic Butter Spaghetti
Easy Pasta Alfredo
Video
Equipment
Ingredients
- 8 ounce pasta I used linguini
- 4 tablespoons butter unsalted
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1½ cups milk
- 1 cup heavy cream
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese shredded
- ¼ teaspoon salt or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon pepper or to taste
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley chopped
Instructions
- Cook the pasta according to the package instructions.
- Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds, or until fragrant.
- Pour in the milk and cream. Stir consistently to avoid burning on the bottom of the pan until the mixture comes to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium, and mix in the parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Adjust the seasoning to your own taste.
- Remove the pan from the heat and mix in the cooked pasta until the sauce begins to thicken. Garnish with parsley, and serve.
Tips & Notes:
- You can use a larger ratio of milk to cream if you’d like to cut down on calories.
- You can use any type of pasta that you prefer.
- This can be served with chicken or mushrooms to add some protein.
This worked exactly as written, thanks!
My pleasure, glad you enjoyed it!
Easy to make and very popular with my wife and me. We loved it!!
I’m so glad to hear that!
I love this simple Pasta Alfredo dish. It’s a great easy to follow recipe and it’s ridiculously tasty. It’s restaurant tasty! Try it you won’t regret it. Thank you for this recipe, it’s now my go to dish!
I’m so glad you love it! Simple and delicious recipes are the best, especially when they taste like they’re from a restaurant. Enjoy your go-to dish!
Made for my daughter and add on crabsticks in a jiffy. She loves it.
Could You use penne instead of linguine?
Absolutely!
Can you substitute all milk, without the cream?
While classic Alfredo sauce is known for its rich, creamy texture which comes from using heavy cream, you can substitute milk for a lighter version. However, using all milk instead of cream will result in a less rich and creamy sauce. To still achieve a creamy consistency, you might consider making a roux with butter and flour before adding the milk, which will thicken it up. Just melt the butter, stir in an equal amount of flour until it’s smooth, then gradually add the milk, stirring continuously until the sauce thickens. Add your cheese and seasonings at the end to avoid any issues with texture.
Great suggestion! I wanted to make a vegan version and knew the substitutes for all except the cream. I’ll use plant milk and flour.
Best Alfredo recipe that I have ever used. My family loved it.
So happy to hear it!
I already sent you my review, but I forgot to mention that I added twice the amount of cheese and I used packaged shredded Parmesan. I think it was a bit too much :)) The sauce ended up quite thick 🙂
Irene
Well I’m always one for more cheese, but as long as it was eaten, that’s all that matters. 🙂
You are so correct in your introduction when you say this is the best Alfredo Sauce recipe. It truly is delicious. I did not have fresh garlic or dried minced garlic on hand, so I used garlic powder. I also had no parsley on hand. I did have all the other ingredients. Also, like you said, the sauce was pretty liquid to start with and I was concerned about the amount of it. But again, like you noted, it thickened up very quickly and it was just the right amount in the end 🙂 Now I want to experiment with a little less heavy cream and more milk. I am not good at playing around with a recipe, but would like to make it a little less calorie heavy 🙂
You surely get an A+++++ for your recipe. Thank you
Irene
Great meal(s)! Was enough for two to have two nice size meals. I like that you can have the sauce as thin or thick as you want just by how much you cook it altogether. We used thin egg noodles, doubled the cheese, and added grilled chicken to it and another time we added grilled shrimp. It was delicious and easy.
Super easy and delicious! I added red pepper flakes for a little spice. The sauce was really thin and didn’t seem to be coming together, but once you add in the pasta it comes together perfectly.
I’m so glad you liked it!