For Olive Garden’s price, you can make 10 plates at home.
For the few times I’ve been to Olive Garden, I can tell you, I’ve ordered the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo nearly every time. It’s a fan favorite and a classic, even if it’s not authentically Italian. Now, Olive Garden sells the alfredo for $20 per plate, but you can make 10 plates worth with that cost.
Preparing the Alfredo Sauce
There’s not a lot of prep with a pasta recipe. Most of the preparation is seasoning the chicken. Start with sliced chicken thighs, in a metal bowl, add parsley, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and olive oil.
This goes on an oiled tray sheet, getting ready to cook.
As for the pasta, prep your garlic by mincing your fresh garlic cloves.
Cooking the Sauce
Start the alfredo sauce by adding olive oil and butter to a pan. When this melts, add minced garlic, salt, and pepper. Alternatively, you can use garlic powder, and to be honest, I have been when I’m lazy to chop garlic.
Garlic Powder vs Fresh Garlic
While you can use both garlic powder or fresh garlic (depending on which you have on hand), there are reasons why you should prefer using one over the other.
Fresh Garlic:
- More complex and nuanced flavor. Is significantly sharper, and the aroma is a lot stronger
- Very intense. Minced garlic releases its aroma and flavor as it cooks, leading to heavy and intense flavors.
- Fresh garlic has a textural element. It comes with tiny flecks of garlic which may or may not be preferred for some people in this dish.
- Requires chopping, mincing, peeling, and cleaning up. Can leave residue (allicin).
Garlic Powder:
- Garlic powder is concentrated, but is one-dimensional. It’s great for an essence of garlic.
- Easier to control the intensity, but lacks depth of flavor.
- No texture, can incorporate easily without chunks or extra flakes of garlic in the dish.
- Very convenient, simple shake or dump into any recipe.
Here’s a tip:
Since fresh garlic releases its flavor slower than garlic powder, add garlic earlier in the cooking process. Typically, you’d add this first with the first set of fat. Meanwhile, garlic powder can be adding later, like when the cream is added to the alfredo sauce.
What is a Roux?
Olive Garden uses a roux for their fettucine alfredo. If you’re sautéing fresh garlic, as the garlic gets more fragrant, add a bit of flour and mix. It should come together and form a clump. This clump is a roux.
A roux is a mix of fat and starch, in this case, olive oil and butter mixed with flour. It’s used to thicken sauces.
For this recipe, you should be using a white roux, which means you’re not cooking down the roux for very long. Once the flour and oil (and garlic), are clumped, add the cream.
Once the cream is added to the roux, whisk to get it to a thick consistency and break up the clump. Next, add the seasonings, and the grated parmesan.
Meanwhile, for the chicken, put it in the oven at 375F for 18 minutes or until the chicken reaches 165F internally.
As for the pasta, cook this accordingly to the box, but to your prepared doneness (recommended, al dente).
Serving the Alfredo
Once the pasta is cooked, serve with the alfredo sauce and then top with the chicken. Serve with more fresh parmesan.
