Use Mayo To Make Alfredo Sauce In Record Time

Alfredo sauce can come with plenty of contention. If you bring up the dish in Italy or around purists, you'll probably hear that the original sauce was made with butter, parmesan, and pasta water. They're not wrong, as traditional Alfredo sauce has no cream. Still, adding cream has become a welcome habit amongst those who would rather leave convention behind. There are as many recipes for the sauce as there are cooks, and sometimes going against the customary tide can breed innovation. This seems to be the ongoing case with Alfredo sauce, since a few recipes for the creamy, cheesy, buttery sauce call for mayonnaise to quicken the process.

It makes sense, mainly because mayo is an excellent emulsifier that helps to make a neutral base in various other sauces. Some even view the ingredient as essentially hollandaise, just made with oil instead of butter. Mayo was even once one of the original five French mother sauces (hollandaise replaced it). Maybe the idea of putting mayo into Alfredo sauce isn't so startling, after all.

Despite having just three ingredients — oil, egg yolks, and an acid like vinegar or lemon juice — mayonnaise is the unsung hero of many kitchens. It makes for great sauces, a good grilled cheese sandwich, and helps out in baked goods largely because eggs and oil play so well with almost everything. What's more, mayo is considered a wholly stable or "permanent" emulsion since it typically doesn't separate. This is good news, especially when it comes to making Alfredo sauce fast.

In Alfredo sauce, mayonnaise works as a substitute for butter and pairs well with cheese by balancing some of its sharper attributes with its acidity. Additionally, mayo acts as a binder because of the lecithin found in egg yolks, which will help hasten and ease the process of making Alfredo sauce because all four ingredients (if you add cream) contain water and three have fat. This helps all of the ingredients to blend properly and, thanks to the mayo shortcut, quickly.

If you're concerned that mayo will change the taste of Alfredo sauce, don't worry. After all, most recipes require just 2 to 3 tablespoons of the stuff. Still, be sure to sample as you go, since recipes aren't always an exact science and what tastes great to some cooks might disagree with others. As for when to add it, many instructions call for mayo after you've melted the butter and added the cream to the pan.

If fettuccini Alfredo isn't your favorite, carbonara may also receive a similar mayo treatment. In some cases, carbonara recipes don't even include eggs. Although many cooks would be hard-pressed to call these pasta dishes without the star ingredient carbonara, this removal arguably still works if you bring in mayonnaise, because mayo contains egg yolks. If you've been reluctant to make Alfredo sauce before, perhaps mayonnaise is what was missing to convert you via a quick and tasty version of this classic sauce.