Almost Authentic Fettuccine Alfredo

I haven’t posted a recipe on here in a while!

I found this recipe after Brian and I watched a video from Epicurious (available here), which completely changed my thinking about how to make alfredo sauce. I never knew you could make alfredo sauce without using heavy cream, or some sort of flour-based mixture. I tried this recipe tonight, and we really enjoyed the results!

If you’ve read any of my previous blog posts including recipes, you’ll know that I like to adapt recipes I find to the ingredients I like the best. I linked to the original recipe at the bottom of this post, and the following recipe shows what I actually made.

Almost Authentic Fettuccine Alfredo

Ingredients:
8 oz. whole-wheat rotini (one of the “almost authentic” parts of the recipe)
Salt to taste
6 tbsp. butter
3 oz. mixed mozzarella and parmesan cheese (the other “almost authentic” part of the recipe)
Salt, white pepper, black pepper, nutmeg, and basil

Directions:
1. Fill a large pot with water and bring to boiling. Add the whole-wheat rotini and salt to taste. Cook until the pasta is al dente (almost done, but not quite).
2. While the pasta cooks, slowly melt the butter in a large, flat, high-sided skillet.
3. When the pasta finishes cooking, drain the pasta, saving the water in which the pasta cooked. (This is really important because the pasta water will hold the sauce together! I drained my pasta directly into a colander resting on top of a bowl.)
4. Add the drained pasta to the melted butter along with more salt to taste. Stir a few times.
5. Then, alternately add a ladle of the pasta water with half the cheese. Stir the pasta until the cheese melts and coats the pasta. (Be careful not to add too much pasta water–you can always add more later.) Add another ladle of pasta water and the rest of the cheese.
6. Finish by mixing in the white pepper, black pepper, nutmeg, and basil. (I never measure my seasonings, but my guess is 1/8 tsp. of the two peppers and 1/4 tsp. of nutmeg and basil. You can adjust these seasonings depending on what you like.)
7. I served my Almost Authentic Fettuccine Alfredo with lightly-salted cucumber slices on the side. The fresh taste of the cucumbers nicely complimented the savory taste of the pasta. Enjoy!

And here’s a link to the original recipe.

If you make this recipe, will you please let me know what you think? I’d love to hear if you changed the recipe at all, and how you liked the flavor combinations.