The main difference between the Olive Garden Fettuccine Alfredo and my own Ashley’s Favorite Sauces: Alfredo is the garlic: a ‘true’ Alfredo traditionally only has the three ingredients, cream, butter, and cheese. The Olive Garden adds a good bit of garlic to theirs, as anyone who has eaten there knows! It’s awfully good, so when I found this recipe I definitely wanted to give it a try.

If you make it plain, the way the Olive Garden serves it, you will only get 4-5 servings out of 14 or 16 oz of pasta, and it will have about 850-900 calories a serving if you top it with extra cheese.

My diet does not allow that, I don’t know about yours!

So I made the ‘additions’ of some sautéed shrimp and some steamed broccoli florets. Quite a few broccoli florets, as a matter of fact! Enough of these healthy kind of additions (sautéed or wilted spinach and grilled chicken would be good too!) will spread out the servings from a pound of pasta from 4-5 to 7-8, and that’ll cut that massive load of calories in half. 

You see how many extra servings I got out of this? It reheats much better than a ‘traditional’ Alfredo, too!!

A NOTE ON THE CHEESE: You will want to use a block of fresh Parmesan and grate it yourself, for this recipe! It needs to be that finely grated to melt into the sauce properly.

Copycat Olive Garden Fettuccine Alfredo

• Ingredients 
• 1 lb. 

  fettuccine (I used 14oz, because that’s how Tinkyada packages their fettuccine)

• 3 

  cloves garlic, grated or minced

• 1 tsp. 

  freshly ground black pepper, plus more for taste

• 8 Tbsp. (1stick) 

  butter, divided and cut into tablespoons 

• 1 c. 

  heavy cream or half and half

• 1/2 c. 

  Parmesan, grated plus more for serving

• Freshly chopped parsley, for ganish

Directions

1. Follow instructions to cook fettuccine, subtracting about 2 minutes from the cook time to start testing it, to ensure the pasta is al dente. You REALLY do not want mushy pasta for this one! Reserve about 1 cup of the pasta water.
2. 
   After you’ve drained your pasta, melt 1T of the butter in the hot pasta pot. I turned the heat back on about medium-low. Add garlic and black pepper and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until the garlic is fragrant. Don’t let anything burn!
3. 
   Whisk in heavy cream and the rest of the butter. Bring the cream mixture to a simmer and let it simmer about 2-3 minutes. The recipe said it was going to thicken slightly. Mine didn’t.
4. 
   Add the 1/2C Parmesan and cooked fettucine to the pasta pot and toss until the cheese is melted and the pasta is fully coated. (I added my shrimp and broccoli at this step.) Add 1/2C or so of the pasta water and simmer for an additional minute tossing until the sauce is glossy and cohesive. The starch in the pasta water should thicken the sauce. Add more pasta water if needed to get the sauce the right consistency.

Move pasta to a serving bowl and garnish with freshly grated Parmesan and parsley for serving.

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