Alfredo Sauce
Fettuccine Alfredo or "fettuccine all’Alfredo" is a dish made with fettuccine pasta combined with a sauce made from Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and butter. The dish was named after Alfredo Di Lelio who opened a restaurant in Rome in 1914 and served “fettuccine all’Alfredo. Fettuccine Alfredo is an exaggerated variation of "pasta al burro" or pasta with butter--a dish that Italians understand better as something that…
Ingredients
- 8 oz (2 sticks / 230 g) of butter, unsalted and softened to room temperature
- ½ pound (230 g) Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (aged 24 months), grated
- Salt
- 1 pound (450 g) fettuccine egg noodles
Steps
- Whisk butter and grated Parmesan-Reggiano until creamy and thick.
- Boil noodles in large pot of water until al dente.
- Drain noodles. Reserve ½ cup cooking liquid.
- Return noodles to warm pot. Stir in butter and cheese mixture vigorously, adding pasta water until noodles are glistening and smooth.
- Add salt to taste.
- Serve immediately.
Notes from the original
- Alfredo Di Lelio, for whom the dish is named, was a Roman innkeeper. Between the 1910s and the 1950s he owned a popular restaurant named Alfredo all'Augusteo in Piazza Augusto Imperatore in the center of the city. The restaurant, now called "Il Vero Alfredo - Alfredo di Roma", is run by the granddaughter of Alfredo Di Lelio, Ines Di Lelio.
- The original name of the dish, created in 1914, was Fettuccine al triplo burro (Fettuccine with triple butter).
- Fettuccine is the traditional pasta for Alfredo and its variations because the broad noodles provide just the right platform for the butter fat and cheese.
- Fresh egg pasta is greatly preferred by some over dried pasta for cream and cheese sauces because the sauce sometimes clings more readily to fresh pasta than it does to dried.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Alfredo Sauce” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-07-14, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.






