This one-pot Chicken Alfredo is super easy to whip up. It is elegant enough to impress on date night and hearty enough for a family meal.

What is Fettuccine Alfredo?

Originally made without any chicken, the dish is known in Italy as fettuccine al burro or “fettuccine with butter”.

The rich sauce is simply made using three ingredients – butter, grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese and hot pasta water.

However, as this dish spread to America, other ingredients like heavy cream, garlic and herbs were added. To make it a more complete meal, you can choose to top it off with chicken, shrimp, salmon, mushrooms or even broccoli.

So who is Alfredo?

While fettuccine with emulsified cheese and butter has reportedly been around since the 15th Century, the modern version is thanks to a chef named Alfredo di Lelio.

According to accounts, Alfredo created this dish in an effort to entice his wife to eat after giving birth to their first child. His version involved adding extra butter.

After his mother’s restaurant closed down, he opened his own establishment in 1914 in central Rome where he started serving his version he called, Fettuccine Alfredo.

The popularity of this dish grew far and wide thanks to some theatrics and the help of 1950s Hollywood.

John F Kennedy dining at Ristorante Alfredo in Rome

This dish was prepared table side, much to the delight of his often famous guests. First, a plate of freshly cooked, still wet, steaming hot pasta, set atop several cubes of melting butter would be presented. Next, a generous whack of finely grated aged cheese would be scattered over. Finally, the mixture would be briskly tossed until each strand of pasta glistened with the emulsified sauce.

A photo gallery of visiting celebrities like Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Ava Gardner and Sophia Loren that lined the wall of Alfredo’s restaurant further helped to promote this Italian dish.

And the rest, as you know, is history!

Actress Ginger Rogers with Chef Alfredo Di Lelio

What pasta to use?

Fettuccine means “little ribbons” and is similar to other flat, long strip pastas like tagliatelle and linguine.

However, fettuccine is wider than linguine but thinner than tagliatelle and is mainly used in creamy sauces, like Alfredo. It can be easily interchangeable for recipes that call for linguine or spaghetti.

Here I use homemade, fresh egg pasta which is more delicate than dried pasta but absorbs the pasta sauce just as well.

Dried pasta is ideal for heavier meatier sauces. It holds up better and provides that delightful toothsome, al dente bite.

I vote for fresh pasta for this dish, but if buying packaged fettuccine, choose one that is yellower than others. Good quality pasta has a more amber hue and doesn’t clump together when cooking.

PARMESAN CHEESE VS PARMIGIANO-REGGIANO

Tomay-toe, tomah-toe you may say but there is much more to a name when it comes to food than you might think.

Linguistically, parmesan is easier to say than parmigiano-reggiano and in fact is the English translation of this Italian cheese.

However, if you see cheese labelled “parmesan” it is probably a knock-off containing additives and other ingredients that you will never find in the real deal.

They don’ t call it the “king of cheeses” for nothing! Named after its birthplace, Parma, Parmigiano-Reggiano has an 800 year old history.

To ensure the highest quality and authenticity, check the label when buying this cheese and don’t ever buy it pre-grated.

Why use cream?

As you know, the original recipe is made with only butter and cheese with hot pasta water to bring everything together.

So why use cream instead? Well, in the modern recipes, cream allows you to create more sauce without using more butter.

Since butter is a by-product of churning cream (the other is buttermilk), you’ll still get that rich mouth feel that butter brings when using cream in this dish.

Some recipes even use flour to thicken the sauce and low-fat milk in place of butter. Ultimately it’s up to your personal preference and what ingredients you have at hand.

In my recipe we’re going to use cooking cream.

Unlike milk, cooking cream can withstand high cooking temperatures without breaking or curdling. It also has less butter fat than heavy cream.

It is, however, more liquidy than heavy cream but will thicken after it reduces.

about my recipe

The other more practical reason for using cream is that it allows all the flavours to come together over a longer cooking time.

In the original recipe, the cheese is emulsified quickly with the butter to give you the rich sauce.

With my recipe, and other modern-day home cooked versions of Alfredo, ingredients like garlic, herbs and chicken are added. These lend depth and complexity to this otherwise simple and straightforward dish.

Now that you know some background of this dish, let’s get cookin’ good lookin’.

other pasta dishes to try: