Help with Alfredo Sauce... need to thin it out!

Hey all, I make my own alfredo sauce, which is excellent for home use, but now that I’m going to be doing pastas I need to modify the recipe…

the problem is, it’s nice and liquid when it’s really hot, but the second it starts to cool (as in sit on the pasta for more then a minute) it starts to become a thick paste.

I tried just adding extra milk to it, it did work but it also took all the flavor away and just tasted like milk :?

What can I use to thin it out and keep it liquid? I was thinking water… someone also said add a regular cream (not the heavy obviously).

Thanks all!

Can you share an ingredient list if not the recipe? Want to see the fats and starches involved.

Your issue could be as simple as adjusting your starch/liquid ratio at the outset so that it “cools into” your desired consistency. As soon as you put a thickened cream sauce on pasta, it will start colling, interact with the starches and start thickening. Nature of the beast. It really needs to be sauced as close to service as possible for best results. Starches in the sauce will continue to swell, and gain friends from the pasta.

If you just need to thin out a batch you have already made, you could season the milk with recipe seasonings before adding it to thick sauce. Or simply re-season after thinning it.

The pieces of the recipe that is causeing the problem is the cream cheese… the garlic and lite romano i put in there dosent seem to effect it.

Funny, I’m having the same issue. Basically I’m using romano, parmesan, butter and heavy cream. It’s great when its first made but its difficult to reheat and get the right consistency. From an operational standpoint it does not work well when reheated.

add heavy cream,Parmesan for extra flavor…

dosent the Heavy Cream thicken it even more?

We make our alfredo sauce with heavy cream, parmesan and butter. After it thickens up, we spoon out a portion, and reheat it in a saute pan, whisking frequently to keep it from burning. It is then a little thin, and we add a little more parm, and a little flour, and continue to heat to cook out any flour taste. The whole process takes about 2 minutes.

hope that helps.

try doing 1/2 heavy cream 1/2 regular cream… the thing about alfredo sauce is that almost every recipe when the sauce is cold it thickens…you don’t want your alfredo sauce to be too thin either… give that a shot and let us know what happens…

Issue for us is that we don’t have burners and cannot get them as the city made it cost prohibitive to do so. All our “final” cooking to order is done with a combination of micros and ovens. The alfred just does not reheat very well in a micro. Seems to me I may just have to go more towards a garlic cream sauce.

hey, there is a brand of alfredo sauce called STOUFFERS… this alfredo sauce is great… it come in bags and frozen… all you have to do is take it out one bag at the timem let it defrost and to order, put some in the pasta and bake it in the pizza oven for around 7 or 8 mins… that sauce is so good… I know some people that are using them at the time and they sell a lot of it… people even thing it is homemade… the key is to make sure to let it bake good in the oven… hope this help… any questions about it let me know…

stouffers is great we use it its a little pricy but well worth it get an apw warmer like this one

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi … T.m240.lVI

we put aour pasta sauce in one side and the alfredo in the other set on low and it stays warm & thin all day

Yes I have they warmer and it is what I use to keep my cheese/chili/pasta sauce warm… i did’nt test it with my alfredo yet, i was worried it would over cook it if it stays in their all day. I have to keep the temp at 4 to keep the cheese and chili up to temp via the health dept.

Yes, we have been using Stoufers as well. Its good but its not cheap and if I can figure a practical way to cook it I would like to do our own. Plus, IMO Stoufers is not good on pizza.

i sell a crapload of stouffers alfredo pizzas you can’t put the same amount of it on the pizza as you would reg pizza sause(about half) it turns out great

anybody try the grande recipe for alfredo?? I’m thinking of trying it but adding garlic, we’re trying to do a garlic alfredo sauce but we’re having the same issues with thickness, and also no burners, so let us know if you get it figured out!!!

We’ve tried the Grande recipe but once it cools it turns solid as a stick of butter. Reheating and stirring from a microwave does not yield very good results as the cheese just does not completely liquify again. I tried using liquid butter with the same results.

ok, new problem…

i make a new small batch of sauce today and test it out… it’s perfect… I then dump it into a 1/6 6" deep pan and place it in the steam table.

It’s been sitting there covered (with it’s spoon slotted metal cover) for 3 hours… i just tasted it, and it taste like someone watered it down! Very blah.

Any idea what the problem is now?

I just took the lid off and will let it sit uncovered for a couple hours. I wonder if the steam held in by the lid dripped into the sauce and watered it down that much?

update: after letting it sit for 3 hours in the steam table without being covered… it became thick and enhanced the flavors so much that it does not taste good at all.

So, with lid - to watered down
Without lid - to much flavor

Dosent look like I can keep it in the steamer without screwing it up… any other ideas?

Thanks all! :oops:

any luck with this?? worried about how we’re going to do this type of sauce!

The Grande recipe is good but I’ve just not found it to be a practical recipe without burners. I’ve personally made it work “sometimes” with a microwave but the results have been inconsistent and figure what happens when you let the staff at it. I think one of the big problems is when the Grande recipe cools it separates and then hardens. When you scoop it out later after its cooled you are not getting a good product because of the separation.

I have had success with not using the butter and reducing the cheese. It then reheats very well in the microwave. I don’t know if you want to call it Alfredo or garlic and cream sauce at that point. From my experience in many different restaurants, there are many variations of that sauce for reasons we have discussed. True alfredo has butter but that is just not practical without burners.