There was a huge Italian restaurant near my hometown that offered “family style” dishes that arrived at the table in large skillets (the ones they were prepared in). If I were to order something like what’s contained in this recipe, I’d get the entire pound of pasta, along with full garlic cloves that were cooked to perfection. Not minced garlic, full cloves that were soft and that melted in my mouth. Needless to say, I love family style meals and this recipe can certainly be considered one of them.
The Recipe
The alfredo sauce in this recipe is rich. It’s very good, but it’s rich. If you’re on a diet and are trying to lose weight, you may want to skip this one. If you’re trying to impress a friend or are having people over your house for a social event, this would be a good choice. You’ll get a lot of oohs and ahhs. Tons of cheese and flavor. I definitely liked this dish.
The sauce is a dairy lover’s dream. It takes advantage of butter, whole milk, cream cheese and mozzarella cheese. As you get to the end of its preparation and begin to taste it, you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s pretty awesome, if you ask me. Not as cheesy as the mac and cheese recipe I shared, but cheesy and delicious in its own right.
Ingredients
Serves: 4-6
1 Pound Dry Fettuccini
3 Tablespoons Butter
2 Teaspoons Garlic, Minced
3 Tablespoons Flour
1 3/4 Cups Whole Milk
1/2 Cup Vegetable Broth
2 Tablespoons Cream Cheese
1 Cup Shredded or Cubed Mozzarella Cheese
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 15-Ounce Can of Artichoke Hearts, Halved
3 Cups Baby Spinach
Salt
Ground Black Pepper
Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
3 Tablespoons Parsley, Chopped
1/4 Teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
Step-by-Step Instructions
I’d like to thank Delish.com for this recipe. I believe Laura found it online and when she did, she knew to send it right over to me. I thought I’d enjoy the dish if I prepared it and I also thought it would be fun to share on this site, so here I am doing just that. I put this together yesterday and it didn’t disappoint.
Cook the Pasta
Bring about 4 quarts of water to a boil over high heat on your stove top. Add 1 tablespoon of salt to the water and when it’s boiling, add the fettuccini to it. Stir and let the pasta cook between 11 and 13 minutes, or until it’s just al dente.
When the pasta is cooked, pour the contents of the pot into a colander in your sink to drain. Then, give the colander a few shakes and pour the pasta back in the pot it cooked in. Be sure to move the pot off the hot burner. Also, add about 4 tablespoons of olive oil to the pasta and mix it in well. This helps prevent the pasta from sticking to itself as you go through the rest of this recipe.
Prep the Ingredients
You can prep the ingredients as the pasta is cooking. They’re easy to finish, so it shouldn’t take much time to complete.
First, I rinsed the artichoke hearts and put them in a bowl.
I secretly cut these in half away from the camera later on.
Next, I measured out and very coarsely chopped the baby spinach. I also chopped the parsley.
Finally, I cubed the mozzarella cheese. I began shredding this, but realized that I didn’t need to make that much of a mess. It’s going to melt into the sauce anyway and cubing it was fine.
For the remaining ingredients, I merely took them out of the refrigerator and cabinets and gave them easy access on my counter top.
Prepare the Alfredo Sauce
Warm a large skillet over medium heat. Then, when the pan is to temperature, add the butter and let it melt. After that, add the garlic and stir for 30 seconds. Finally, add the flour, stir and cook until everything is bubbling, just about another 30 seconds. Be sure not to burn anything, but the mixture should be golden brown.
Next, slowly add the broth and the milk, whisking while adding them. Bring this mixture to a simmer. Then, add the cream cheese and the mozzarella and cook for about 3 minutes until the sauce thickens and the cheese is melted.
Add Remaining Ingredients
Fold the spinach into the alfredo sauce until the leaves wilt. Then, add the artichoke hearts, the lemon juice, a few pinches of salt and a few pinches of pepper and mix everything together.
Finally, add the pasta to the skillet and combine all the ingredients well.
Plate & Serve
You have a few choices here, but they both need to be done while the pasta is hot. You can either bring the entire skillet to the table and serve the pasta out of it with tongs or you can plate each serving individually. The reason all the serving needs to be done while hot is because of all the cheese in the sauce. If it cools, it will thicken, so you have to be fast. When it’s hot though, it’s really good, so enjoy it.
The Final Fettuccini Alfredo
I decided to go with individual servings, so I simply placed some of the fettuccini into a few bowls. After I did that, I sprinkled some red pepper flakes on top as well as some chopped parsley. This dish was really great. If you decide to give it a try, please let me your thoughts down in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!
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