Tortellini Alfredo Recipe: How to Make Tortellini Alfredo

Tortellini Alfredo is an Italian-inspired main dish featuring filled pasta in a creamy, cheesy sauce. Originally from the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, tortellini is a stuffed pasta shaped into rings and typically served “in brodo” (in broth). Pairing store-bought cheese tortellini with homemade Alfredo sauce makes for rich, weeknight-friendly comfort food.

Alfredo sauce originates from the creamy sauce served in the 1920s at the famous Roman restaurant Alfredo alla Scrofa. Their fettuccine Alfredo featured butter and aged Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese mixed with hot, cooked pasta. The warm pasta water surrounding the strands of fettuccine gets emulsified with the butter and cheese to coat the pasta, similarly to cacio e pepe.

Cooks from the United States modified the recipe to require less Parmesan cheese, swapping in ingredients like cream, garlic, black pepper or white pepper, and nutmeg for additional flavor.

There are three types of Alfredo sauce: French-style, Italian-style, and American. French-style uses a roux, while classic Italian Alfredo is a simple union of unsalted butter, Parmesan, and pasta. Alfredo sauce from the US is the thick, cream-based version.

It’s hard to go wrong with Alfredo. Follow these simple steps to make restaurant-quality pasta dishes at home.

1. 1. Add chicken. For a classic add-in, incorporate sliced, sautéed, or grilled chicken breast into your Alfredo sauce before tossing it with the pasta. Garnish your chicken Alfredo with lots of chopped parsley for color, and serve it with garlic bread.
2. 2. Go vegan. For a plant-based tortellini meal, pivot to a vegan Alfredo sauce containing ingredients like nutritional yeast, cashews, miso, tofu, cauliflower, and roux. Purchase vegan tortellini or make your own vegan pasta. Learn how to make vegan Alfredo sauce.
3. 3. Make homemade pasta. If making homemade pasta, roll it thinly. As the old saying goes, you should be able to read the newspaper through a sheet of properly rolled pasta dough. In addition, seal the edges properly before cooking off the pasta, so it doesn’t explode or unravel in the cooking water. Use this homemade sausage tortellini recipe as a guide.

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