A couple of nights ago I decided to try and make some “alfredo” sauce for Chicken Alfredo pasta and it was delicious so I figured I’d share my recipe here.

I’m not a cook and I don’t really measure anything so use the below as a guideline only and have fun!

Table of Contents

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of heavy cream (I actually did measure this!)
  • Half of a half of a block of marble cheese so I guess 1/4 block
  • Half of a block of cream cheese
  • 1 inch cube of hard butter
  • Olive oil
  • 1 small onion
  • 2 “quarter size” areas (in the palm of your hand) of Litehouse freeze dried garlic (love this stuff!)
  • 2 “quarter size” areas (in the palm of your hand) of salt
  • I dunno maybe 16-20 twists of a black pepper grindy thingie
  • Pasta. I used Olivieri 3 Formaggi Fresh Pasta Tortellini pre-made pasta from Walmart. It comes in a two pack where one pack is one serving (more on that later)
  • Leftover Costco rotisserie chicken, chunked

Preparation

  1. Cut up an onion into small squares/pieces. I guess this is what’s known as dicing.
  2. Cry a little for the onion’s sacrifice to give you sustenance
  3. Make your marble cheese smaller so it melts better
    • Realise your grater is dirty in the dishwasher and you don’t want to quickly wash it manually because that’s why you have a dishwasher so use a knife to cut the marble cheese into small pieces
  4. Cut the cream cheese into small pieces.
  5. Realise that cream cheese will reform itself back into larger pieces when it touches other pieces of cream cheese
  6. Try to chop it again into small pieces and get annoyed
  7. Give up and chop it into a couple of smaller chunks while using the same precautions as keeping matter and anti-matter from coming into contact with each other
  8. Clean hands because cream cheese has found it’s way everywhere and you hate sticky mushy stuff on your hands

Doing the Thing To Make The Sauce/Pasta

  1. Heat a large cast-iron skillet on medium heat. When it’s getting hot add the cube of hard butter and swish it around to coat the pan
  2. Add the onion and keep it moving around every 30 seconds to a minute with a spatula to keep it from burning
  3. After about 2-3 minutes, add 1 of your “quarters” of salt, 1 of your “quarters” of garlic, and 8-10 twists of your pepper grindy thingie
  4. Mix that all in with the onions with your spatula. Remember to keep the onion moving.
  5. After about 10-ish minutes the onions should be a lovely brown colour with a soft texture. Scoop them out of the pan and into a waiting bowl for safe keeping
  6. Reduce the heat to halfway between low and medium, which is medium-low heat I guess
  7. Pour in some olive oil. How much? I dunno use your discretion. I made a circle about 3 inches wide
  8. Swish the olive oil around to coat the pan
  9. Pour in the heavy cream
  10. Realise you should probably keep this moving
  11. Panic look for your whisk
  12. Start whisking the heavy cream in circles to keep it moving. Go with a speed of like 2 wrist up-downs per second
  13. After 2-ish minutes, add the onions into the sauce and keep whisking
  14. After 1-ish minute, add the second “quarter” of salt. Say “ooooo” as you notice the cream bubble where the salt hits it.
  15. Break out into song inspired by Journey

🎶
Don’t stop.
Whisk-ing.
Got to keep it mov-ing.

Hea-vy. Crea-e-e-e-eem!
🎶

  1. Add the second “quarter” of garlic
  2. Use the remaining 8-10 twists of ye old pepper grindy
  3. Whisk some more
  4. After another 3-ish minutes (cream should have been heating/whisking for about 6-7 minutes at this point) remove the pan from heat
  5. Wander around the kitchen for a bit before you settle on a place to lay the hot skillet down. Keep whisking
  6. Keep wandering around the kitchen while you look for a trivet for the hot skillet. Keep whisking.
  7. Finally set down the skillet on the trivet. Keep whisking.
  8. Add the grated/cut up marble cheese
  9. Keep whisking until cheese is melted/incorporated
  10. STOP whisking.
  11. Add the cream cheese, careful not to put it in the same spot. You don’t want this stuff to touch!
  12. Realise cream cheese melts a lot slower than other cheeses.
  13. Start to whisk only to realise that the cream cheese will just mash itself into the whisk so stop doing that nonsense immediately or you’ll end up with cream cheese in your whisk and not in your sauce
  14. Put the skillet back on the heat
  15. Use a spatula to start folding the cream cheese into the heavy cream/cheese mixture
  16. Realise the sauce is almost ready and you didn’t start the pasta yet.
  17. Start boiling that water. Thankfully you have an induction plate so this is relatively quick
  18. Keep folding that cream cheese in, it should be melting pretty well now.
  19. Add one pack of pasta to the boiling water.
  20. Think it doesn’t look like much pasta for 2 people… 🤔 decide to add the second pack of pasta as well
  21. Think now it looks like too much pasta 😕 but too late now ¯\(ツ)/¯
  22. Remove the sauce from heat again. Keep folding/moving the sauce around. The sauce will be thiccc at this point.
  23. Pasta takes 6-8 minutes. Use directions on package, but want the pasta to be “al dente” because it will cook a little bit more when we add it to the sauce. I don’t know who Al Dente is but I kept asking the pasta what it’s name was and it never did answer me so I just used it after the recommended 6-8 minutes
  24. Realise you should have started the pasta earlier
  25. When the pasta is almost ready, remember that you were going to have “chicken alfredo” and you forgot about the chicken
  26. Panic cut up some chicken into small chunks, taking breaks every 20-30 seconds to move the sauce around in the skillet
  27. Strain the pasta, but save a half cup of pasta water (You don’t need all this pasta water!)
  28. Put the sauce back on the heat
  29. Add the pasta to the sauce and fold it into the pasta
  30. Add the chicken to the sauce and fold it into the pasta. This will be a VERY thick hard to move mixture at this point. If you ate it like this it would probably solidify into a solid mass in your stomach requiring surgery to remove. You could probably add it to a mold and make bricks out of it tbh
  31. Start slowly pouring the pasta water into the sauce while folding with the spatula. Take your time because the mixture will go from very thick to runny again quickly
  32. When you have a consistency you like, stop adding pasta water
  33. Keep stirring/folding/incorporating for a few minutes to make sure all the pasta and chicken have had a chance to meet the sauce, get to know each other, have a little chat, wonder where Al Dente is, maybe get a little jiggy with it
  34. Serve and enjoy!

Post Eating Notes

  • Is all this sauce moving needed? No idea I’m not a cook remember but it worked for me so….
  • Two packs of the pasta were PLENTY for two people. Realistically probably should have only added the single pack but it was delicious and we ate all of what I made so no regerts
  • I need to work on my cooking planning so I’m not as panicked (yea that’s never going to happen)
  • This pasta dish is probably absolutely TERRIBLE for you but it was delicious and I don’t plan on having it every night/week so live your life, eat the pasta.
  • Let me know if you try this and what you think!

If you have any questions/comments please leave them below.

Thanks so much for reading ^‿^

Claire

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