Make Ahead Alfredo Sauce! Ready in 10 minutes. Keeps in the fridge for a week and is quickly reheated. Mix with pasta or serve over vegetables, potatoes, fish or chicken.
BE PICTURED IN; CHARACTERIZED IN:
Here’s a nifty meal gadget if you’ve got a busy week ahead: make-your-own alfredo sauce!
Video: Easy to make alfredo sauce ahead of time
1:39
Make-Ahead Alfredo Sauce
Mornay Sauce is Bechamel with Cheese!
If you fancy, you can call this alfredo sauce by its classic French name: Mornay sauce. If you’re feeling even fancier, you can explain to your adoring table attendants that a Mornay sauce is only one bechamel to which you have added a generous amount of cheese.
And what is a bechamel but one roux-Sauce of butter, flour and milk. Naturally.
How to make alfredo sauce
Here’s how to prepare alfredo sauce in four easy steps:
- Whisk together some flour and butter in a pan over medium-high heat. That’s the roux!
- Now stir in some warm milk.
- Allow to thicken slightly until it feels creamy and silky when stirred
- Then add the cheese and stir until the cheese is melted. Did. Easy Alfredo Sauce.
Tips for making an easy alfredo sauce
People are often intimidated and unsure of how to make alfredo sauce. This is a simple recipe, but here are some tips to get you started!
- If you start whipping the warm milk into the roux it will clump up and look horrible like you made a horrible mistake. Don’t worry – these lumps will thin out as you add the milk. First they take on the consistency of mashed potatoes, then mashed cauliflower, and then a sauce. Just keep calm and gradually add the milk while beating.
- Also, don’t wait for the milk to thicken completely before adding the cheese since the cheese will thicken it even more. You want to add the cheese just when the milk is thick enough to coat the spoon and sides of the pan in a thick milky coating. If you’re wondering if it’s time to add the cheese, it probably is.
- If the sauce seems too thin after adding the cheese, just let it simmer on low heat for a few more minutes until it’s as thick as you like. Conversely, if the sauce seems too thick (either now or when you reheat it), simply stir in a splash of milk, broth, or water to thin it again.
- Don’t limit yourself to just using parmesan for this alfredo sauce recipe. You can really use any cheese you like – cheddar, swiss, gruyere, gouda… you get the idea. Use the best quality and best flavored cheese you can find. It’s the main ingredient, so it makes a world of difference in the palatability of your finished sauce.
Alfredo sauce that warms up perfectly
The real magic of this easy alfredo sauce is how easy it is to reheat. So many cheese sauces tend to separate into gritty cheese and puddles of greasy liquid when reheated, but not this sauce. The flour in the roux makes this a very stable, very reliable, and very forgiving sauce.
The alfredo sauce will set into a thick paste after chilling in the fridge, but give it a few minutes of gentle heat on the stovetop or in the microwave and it will become silky and creamy again. If you see a few small beads of fat forming, just flick vigorously to mix them back in.
You can also freeze this alfredo sauce for up to a month. Let it thaw in the fridge overnight before reheating on the stovetop or in the microwave.
Ways to use this easy alfredo sauce
What to do with your cheesy alfredo sauce? Oh, let me count the ways. you can toss it with noodles, well. Use fettuccine if you’re craving fettuccine alfredo, or elbow if you want mac and cheese. The sauce also tastes great over steamed vegetables, baked potatoes, fish and other seafood, or chicken.
I get hungry just thinking about it. Good thing I still have a few glasses in my fridge. Happy cooking everyone!
More Italian Favorite Recipes!
- Fettuccine Alfredo
- Lasagne Bolognese
- Spaghetti pasta carbonara
- Fresh basil pesto
- Pasta Puttanesca
Easy make-ahead Alfredo sauce
That makes enough sauce for 1 pound of pasta – or 1/2 pound if you like it extra cheesy!
Swap out the Parmesan for any favorite cheese to make your own version of this cheese sauce.
For a garlic alfredo sauce, sauté 1 to 2 chopped garlic cloves in the butter before adding the flour.
You can use 2% or skim milk for this recipe, but the sauce will be thinner.
This recipe can be scaled up to make larger batches. Just keep the proportions of flour, butter, milk, and cheese the same.
ingredients
-
1 1/2 cups whole milk, plus extra as needed
-
2 tablespoon unsalted butter
-
2 tablespoon all purpose flour
-
1 to 1 1/2 cups grated parmesan cheese (3 to 3 1/3 ounces, 85 to 128 grams)
-
salt, to taste
-
pepper, to taste
method
-
Warm milk:
Warm the milk in the microwave (30-second bursts) or on the stovetop until warm to the touch and steaming slightly. (It doesn’t have to be piping hot, just warm.) Set aside.
-
Make the roux:
Melt butter over medium heat. Sprinkle the flour on top and then whisk with a whisk.
Continue cooking the roux for 1 minute, stirring constantly. This will cook off the raw flour flavor. It’s okay if the roux turns a golden color, but if it starts to brown noticeably, skip to the next step.
-
Stir in warm milk:
Add about 1/4 cup of the warm milk to the roux and whisk. Add another 1/4 cup and whisk some more. The roux will form lumps.
Add the milk in small 1/4 cup increments, beating continuously. The lumps eventually flatten out and look like mashed potatoes, then a thick mash, and then a sauce. Once it looks like a sauce, stir in the remaining milk. This step should only take about a minute. You can move through the stages fairly quickly.
-
Cook sauce:
After all of the milk has been added, continue cooking the sauce over medium-high heat, stirring, for 3 to 5 minutes. It’s done when it looks like cream – slightly thickened and silky.
-
Stir in Parmesan:
Add all the cheese at once. Stir until the cheese has melted into the sauce and is no longer visible. At this point, the sauce should look fairly thick and creamy.
You can cook it a little longer, stirring occasionally so it thickens a little more if you’d like, but it’s better to avoid using a sauce that’s too thin at this point. When reheated, it will thicken a bit more.
-
Store the Alfredo Sauce:
Transfer the sauce to storage containers and allow to cool completely. A skin forms on the surface of the sauce and the sauce thickens to a pasty consistency; that is normal. Store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or freeze for up to a month.
-
Heat sauce:
If your sauce was frozen, place it in the refrigerator overnight to thaw before reheating.
Transfer the sauce to a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl. Gently warm over low heat or in the microwave in 30-second batches until warm. Stir occasionally or between each 30-second burst in the microwave. It starts out very thick and pasty but softens and reverts to a sauce as it warms up.
If the sauce seems too thick, stir in a splash of milk, broth, or water until the sauce is diluted to your liking.
-
Use reheated sauce immediately:
Mix with cooked pasta or pour over cooked vegetables, chicken or fish.
| nutritional information (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 159 | calories |
| 11g | Fat |
| 7g | carbohydrates |
| 8g | protein |
