5 Ingredient Cream Cheese Alfredo Sauce Recipe

Creamy, cheesy alfredo pasta doesn’t have to be locked behind the doors of your local Italian restaurant. With a little work and a whole lot of cheese, you can easily make it yourself!

Don’t forget to serve a side of Homemade Garlic Bread – Using Sourdough alongside your pasta! Or for something a little different you could make these Easy Cheese Stuffed Garlic Knots!

5 Ingredient Cream Cheese Alfredo Sauce Recipe

Do you ever find yourself craving that decadent cheesy Alfredo pasta that you had at your favorite Italian restaurant one distant weekend in the past? Of course, at the same time, all that you want to do after a long day at work is whip up a quick meal and curl up on the couch?

While the good news is that recreating this much-loved restaurant dish is much simpler and quicker than you might have ever thought!

All you need are five ingredients. That’s right, five ingredients and half an hour in the kitchen and you are set for a night in front of the TV with a giant plate of delicious, cheesy pasta!

Could You Use Low-Fat Alternatives?

It is an unfortunate fact of life that a cheese-based pasta dish is never going to be healthy. As much as we would all like to eat cheesy pasta every day is not good for you and is really something that should be reserved for treat days.

That being said, there are a few things that you can do to make this dish at least a little healthier.

You can swap out the cream cheese and milk for low-fat alternatives. You could also try using vegetable butter as these tend to contain less fat and be better when it comes to cholesterol.

Depending on how worried you are about the nutritional value of your pasta versus maintaining the decadence of this dish will determine how many of these changes you want to make. You might feel that just swapping one ingredient is another to make you feel better or you might want to go all out and change all three.

These are not alterations that you are going to want to make when enjoying this dish as a treat as they sadly do result in a less rich and creamy sauce. You will also find that the sauce is thinner and does not stick to the pasta as well.

Why You Should Avoid Powdered Parmesan

The star of this sauce is the Parmesan, and for this reason, you really want to make sure you are using the best that you can find.

While this recipe is forgiving if you can’t find the very best, most expensive Parmesan from a real Italian deli, it will not be so forgiving if you use the powdered stuff that you find in every grocery store.

You absolutely want to be using a real chunk of Parmesan cheese that you grate yourself. Yes, the powdered stuff might be cheaper, easier to find, and not require you to spend time in the kitchen grating it, but when it comes to flavor they are barely the same product.

There is the well-known joke that powdered Parmesan is actually made from cardboard and while this might sound a little mean, when it is the main ingredient of your dish it might as well be.

Powdered Parmesan has its place and will happily serve its purpose when sprinkled lightly on a tomato pasta dish. But in Alfredo cheese sauce, you can’t beat the sharp cheesy taste of real Parmesan.

Reheating Cream Cheese Alfredo Sauce Leftovers

Make sure to keep any leftovers you might have as they can be reheated the next day for lunch.

Being a cream-based sauce you are going to want to be careful about how you reheat your sauce. Tossing it in a pan and cranking up the heat until it reaches a safe temperature will yield disappointing results.

You want to reheat the sauce slowly on a relatively low heat to prevent it from separating. Make sure to stir it every few minutes for an even cook and smooth consistency.

You will likely find that your sauce tastes a little different after spending the night in the fridge. To hide the taste of reheated cream try adding your favorite hot sauce. Not only does this trick work great, but you also don’t feel like you’re just eating the same meal two days in a row!

Try Adding Vegetables To Your Cream Cheese Sauce

If you’re the kind of person who easily feels guilty when treating yourself to such a rich and creamy dish like this cheese sauce, why not try tossing in some vegetables to balance things out?

The easiest option is to add in a handful of frozen green peas that you have let thaw first. Peas add that bright pop of color that instantly makes a dish feel healthier plus their slight sweetness acts as a contrast to the cheesiness.

Peas are not the only veggie that works well with this creamy cheese pasta, why not try some of these other vegetables to vary up such a simple dish?

• Sweetcorn

Sweetcorn is one of those incredibly versatile vegetables that you can add to almost any dish for a little extra color and a sweet crunch.

Both frozen sweetcorn and canned corn would work in your cheese sauce. Just make sure that frozen corn is thoroughly thawed before adding it to the sauce to prevent adding extra water that you don’t want in the sauce.

• Chopped Cauliflower

Chopped cauliflower might not add much in the way of color to your pasta but it is super healthy and blends in a lot more than most other vegetables.

Cauliflower is one of the best options if you’re serving this dish to a younger audience who tends to put up a fight when confronted with green vegetables.

• Chopped Broccoli

Broccoli works best when you want to add some color to what would otherwise be a rather pale dish but you don’t necessarily want the overall texture to be altered.

The nice thing about broccoli is that when you chop it into small pieces it flakes apart when cooking. This results in speckles of green throughout the dish without having too much of an impact on texture.

Plus everyone knows broccoli is super healthy!

Looking for more delicious Pasta recipes? Try these out:

• Pepperoni Pizza Mac N Cheese
• Chicken Korma Pasta
• Quick Chicken and Noodles

Happy Cooking

Love,

Karlynn

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