How To Make Homemade Alfredo Sauce

Have you wanted to know how to make homemade alfredo sauce? Did you know that it is really very easy and a great way to have a kid friendly dinner?

Wanting to copy the Olive Garden alfredo sauce recipe, and getting in some veggies for the kids, we have been perfecting this recipe for quite a while.

We pair this with my Caesar Salad Recipe for an AWESOME and EASY dinner!

First, get your water boiling for the broccoli.

Then melt ½ a stick of butter in a large pan over medium-low heat. Add about 1 Tbsp of garlic. Stir it around for about 30 seconds. Make sure not to overcook your garlic in the butter. It gives it a bitter flavor that is best to avoid when you burn it. If that ever happens, I would just start over.

Add in a half-pint of heavy whipping cream.

Then add a half-pint of half & half.

* I never said you were going to loose any weight with this recipe 🙂

Add to your pot of boiling water as much broccoli as your family will eat. Then pull it out after about 2 minutes when it is tender but not floppy. You want to leave it some life! It should be a pretty green color.

Take your favorite Parmigiano Reggiano out and grate it. This is the time to call in kids to help you.

Add in some salt to taste. Use caution when salting pre-cheesing, the cheese adds a lot of salty goodness to the sauce!

Let the sauce cook, stirring frequently, over medium-low heat until it starts bubbling lightly. DO NOT BOIL! Boiling is NOT your friend, especially when you are cooking with half-n-half. Did you know that half-n-half curdles more easily than heavy cream because it has less fat and more casein? Heat + casein = broken sauce. Not good. So go easy on the heat here you want to just really warm it all up.

Add in the cheese slowly, about 2-3 cups, stirring frequently until it is all melted and creamy!

The keys to a good white sauce are low heat, slow cooking, lots of stirring, and GOOD cheese. After the sauce, still over medium-low heat, starts to bubble and thicken after the addition of the cheese, take a piece of the cooked broccoli, and then dunk it in the sauce.

When the sauce clings to the broccoli, its done! If its not quite there yet, keep it on a low low LOW simmer, and cook it down a bit. There’s always the option to add more cheese too! You can’t go too wrong with Reggiano. If you have to use the green can of parmesan, it will work. It will be good. Better cheese = better sauce though, so take that into consideration! We buy our Reggiano at Costco or Sam’s. A huge chunk of it costs about $20 and lasts us for months on end. I love having that around the house for topping spaghetti, putting on my homemade garlic bread, and in caesar salads.