Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce Copycat Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Is Olive Garden Alfredo made from scratch? ›

Olive Garden's Alfredo sauce is made daily

The ingredients are simple: a blend of cream, milk, and butter all come together with flour to create the base, then garlic is added along with Parmesan and Romano cheeses to get that hearty Italian flavor that seems to keep customers coming back.

Add Cheese

The key ingredient in Alfredo sauce is cheese—generally Parmigiano Reggiano—and lots of it. To thicken Alfredo sauce, simply add more cheese than the amount called for in a recipe until you achieve the consistency you want.

Freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Parmigiano Reggiano, the name-protected Italian cheese, is a surefire way to add a umami and depth of flavor to a jarred Alfredo sauce. Freshly grate a few inches of the cheese, then whisk it right into the sauce as it's warming on the stove.

Olive Garden dished out a few more facts about the beloved dish that any fan of Italian food would want to know. The recipe for alfredo sauce at Olive Garden has not changed since the restaurant was founded in 1982.

Our soup and sauce masters create dishes by hand and from scratch, every day. With fresh, whole ingredients like kale, peppers and squash. Because they know cooking that way – the Italian way- everything tastes better. to everything they make.

Mix the cornstarch with some cold water to create a smooth slurry, then whisk it into the sauce while cooking over medium-high heat for a few minutes. Add all-purpose flour. Another very common thickening agent that will give your Alfredo sauce a creamy texture.

Thicken Alfredo sauce by: Adding More Cheese: Extra Parmesan or cream cheese for richness. 🧀🥄 Simmering: Let it simmer to reduce and thicken naturally.

The reason behind this is simple; cream sauces tend to lack flavor and feel a bit heavy due to the fat content. Nutmeg is a simple way to warm up the sauce with a subtle, spice flavor that won't overpower it. Like with béchamel, you only need a pinch of nutmeg in your alfredo to improve its flavor.

This recipe for homemade alfredo sauce uses $4.33 worth of ingredients and makes 9.5 ounces, which is also roughly 46 cents per ounce. This means homemade alfredo sauce costs about the same as high quality jarred sauces, but tastes even better.

Why does my Alfredo sauce taste bitter? ›

The Foolproof Way to Make Alfredo Sauce at Home

You'll start by lightly toasting garlic in a bit of butter, cooking just until fragrant. You'll then add the cream before the garlic browns, since burnt garlic can turn the sauce bitter in an instant.

Reduce the heavy cream before adding cheese

Most basic Alfredo sauce recipes today will call for heavy cream or whipping cream to recreate the thick consistency of the original dish. One trick to help create a thick Alfredo sauce is to reduce the cream before adding freshly grated cheese (via Better Homes & Gardens).

After 12 ounces of fettuccine pasta noodles are finished cooking, reserve 2 cups of the pasta water to include in your sauce. The starchy water is essential to creating a thick, creamy sauce consistency.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to guess that Olive Garden, the massive Italian-American restaurant chain with over 900 locations, follows a similar process. But by most accounts, the majority of items on Olive Garden's menu are made in-house, from scratch, on a daily basis — including its signature soups.

Creamy alfredo sauce made from scratch with ingredients like parmesan, cream, garlic and butter, served with fettuccine pasta and topped with sliced grilled chicken.

The alfredo sauce, which now catered to American tastes rather than Italian, evolved to include ingredients like flour, cream, milk, and shrimp or chicken. To this day, di Lelio's original recipe only contains three ingredients: fettuccine, young Parmesan cheese, and butter.

The original dish was an extra-buttery version of an Italian standard, fettuccine al burro — fettuccine with butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. It was created in Rome in 1914 by chef Alfredo di Lelio and served at his restaurant, Alfredo's.