Traditional Alfredo sauce is insanely delicious and sometimes considered a splurge with its indulgent amounts of butter, cream, and cheese. This version still gives you a creamy luxurious experience but lowers fat and calories significantly. This isn’t a recipe who’s purpose is copycat the original with different ingredients. This recipe still uses real cheese, and real butter, just way less of it and some clever additions to make up the difference. This healthy, low-fat alfredo sauce is one of the most popular recipes on our site. It’s been here for almost 10 years now (originally shared in August of 2008) and and continues to be a family staple in households all over!
The great thing about this recipe is that it’s made from simple ingredients that you probably already have at home.
It’s also made in under 10 minutes so if you keep this stuff around it’s great for last-minute meals. And if you really don’t care TOO much about calories, go ahead and make it with whole milk. It’s still going to be waaay lighter than using cream, and it tastes extra delicious.
This recipe starts in the blender. You’ll combine some light cream cheese (which adds creaminess and also adds body to the sauce), milk (anything from nonfat to whole milk works, I really like 1-2%), and a little bit of flour (which helps thicken the sauce). Blend it up until it’s smooth.
Meanwhile you’ll melt just a couple pats of butter in a pan with some minced garlic. Your blender mixture gets poured right into that pan.
After it simmers for just a few minutes to thicken, you’ll add the cheese.
Now let’s talk about Parmesan. You can make this recipe with fresh grated parmesan or even the crumbled kind in the bottle. They turn out just a bit different in texture, but honestly either one works. I almost always have both on hand so I tend to do half and half. Just experiment and see what you like.
You’ll take your pan off the heat and then mix that in until it’s melted.
Your sauce will continue to thicken a bit once it’s removed from the heat so I like to set it aside for at least a few minutes before serving it.
I use this on so many different things. Pasta, obviously. But it’s also really great as a sauce on pizza, or a dip for breadsticks, or even drizzled over vegetables.
Guiltless Alfredo Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 cups low-fat milk1/3 cup 3 oz low fat cream cheese2-3 tablespoons flour1 teaspoon salt1 tablespoon butter3 garlic cloves1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Place milk, cream cheese, flour, and salt in a blender and blend until smooth. In a non-stick sauce pan, melt butter on med-high heat and add garlic. Let the garlic saute for about 30 seconds, you don't want to burn it.
- Then add milk mixture to the pan. Stir constantly for about 3 or 4 minutes or until it just comes to a simmer. Keep stirring and let it cook for a few minutes more. It should be much thicker now.When it's nice and thickened remove the pan from the heat. Add the cheese, stir it up and then cover immediately. Let stand for at least 10 minutes before using. It will continue to thicken upon standing. Season with additional salt if needed. Also, if you have leftovers in the fridge, the sauce will thicken almost into a solid. Just re-heat and add a little milk and it will be back to normal again.
Questions & Reviews
I love this alfredo sauce, I use it all the time! I make it with my immersion blender and use it for pasta sauce. So good. I most recently used it for shrimp pasta primavera.
http://bloginspiredcooking.blogspot.com/2013/01/light-alfredo-sauce.html
I swear someday I’m going to use it to make a white pizza, if only I can get my husband to agree that a non-pepperoni pizza is still pizza. 🙂
I have to try this recipe this weekend! I love alfredo sauce and pretty cream sauces in general but the calories and fat are atrocious. The jar alfredo sauce is craptastic and sodium packed (low-sodium dieter here!). I made a creamy ground turkey and spinach angel hair bake with a diabetic version of alfredo sauce…..the sauce was…for lack of a better word…crap. I wanted to use the ground turkey, peppers, spinach, onions, garlic and angel hair mixture with mushrooms and sundried tomatoes but in skillet form with alfredo sauce but was loathe to use the jar or package. Thanks for giving me an alternative!!!
Such a great recipe! When I made this last night, I ended up with 2.5 cups of sauce. I used 1% milk. According to the WW recipe builder (5 servings) 1/2 cup is 5 points plus while (10 servings) 1/4 cup is 2 points plus.
Tried it. LOVED it. Will never eat store bought alfredo sauce again!
This sounds super delicious, and I’m going to try it regardless but, I don’t have a blender! What should I do!?
Just so you know, the link for the Asian BBQ Chicken Pizza in your post (where you said, “this is the garlic cream sauce I was referring to in this recipe”) is broken. Just thought you’d like to know! 🙂
I cannot wait to make this sauce…yummy! But, I have a question. For how long this sauce is good? For how long can I store the sauce in the fridge? Thanks!
Blech! Made this for the family last night, and we ended up having PB&Js. Too bland, even for someone who does not like spices. It had some good taste too it, but it needs to be perfected.
This recipe for Smarter Fettuccine Alfredo from Kraft, uses fat free chicken broth, instead of milk. We love it, and it is truly delicious.
http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/smarter-fettuccine-alfredo-91370.aspx
I made this for dinner last night and it was a hit! My husband loved it! It was so delicious! 🙂 Thanks for a yummy meal!
Made this tonight over chicken and spinach with angel hair pasta. The only cheese I had on hand was pre-shredded italian mix. It did leave some tiny little clumps but not huge enough that it was too noticeable. We all gobbled it up! I’m making another batch of it tomorrow to keep on hand in the freezer. I had no idea it was this easy!
I just made this and it was so delicious, super easy and I had all the ingredients!!! Thank you! The best part; my little ones all loved it!
This recipe is fantastic. The only problem was that it made so much more than I needed. 🙂 Do you think I could freeze this sauce or would it turn funky?
Look at the difference in the ingredients lists. “low fat” is almost NEVER a healthier version! Try it. Read Philadelphia’s original cream cheese ingredients and them read the low fat one. Great, you consumed less calories but look what you traded them for. I think the recipe sounds good. But I’ll be trying it with the full fat versions of the dairy products. Life style and a good variety of lots of produce can more than make up for heavier meals every once in a while.
very very good! thank you!
This sauce is soooooooooo good! Loved it!
Oh and I just been meaning to say…..I absolutely LOVE this website! I’m 16 and I’ve always liked to cook but it wasn’t until my mom bought your cookbook that I really started LOVING it! Each of us kids has our own “dinner night” at our house where we pick and make dinner. So whenever it was my turn I just turned to your book! And i loved every single recipe (except for the ones I screwed up on which kinda happens a lot lol! 🙂 But I’ve got years to learn right?) Anyway I was in heaven with all those yummy recipes….but that was before I found this blog and HOLY COW!! I just can’t tell you how much I love everything on here! You two are amazing!!! I love just looking at the mouth watering pictures and I can’t wait to make every recipe!! Haha I’m kinda on this website a lot and sometimes my mom’ll ask me to get off the computer….”Mom I’m just on Best Bites”……”honey get off”……….”I’ll make dinner…;)” and you can take it from there haha:) Me and my sister have made a ton of your recipes and sometimes when we just feel like cooking somethin we just pull out the cookbook or the computer. Haha once she made your Guiltless Alfredo Sauce with fettuccine and it was soooooooo good! Our whole fam loved it! Now our little 3 yr old brother calls it “Megan’s Pasta” lol! Well I could go on forever on this blog but I probably should get goin on making dinner! Probably Creamy Chicken Taquitos tonight! =)
Excellent sauce! My picky husband loved it so much he had 2 plates full, scraped the plate clean and requested it be packed for his dinner tonight (3rd shift work)! It was the perfect amount and flavor mixed with the chicken, zucchini, squash, broccoli and whole wheat linguini.
Thanks for this keeper!
Oh. My. I’ll add my kudos to the pile. Can’t wait to try this on pizza.
I just made this for dinner tonight and had to come and say THANK YOU–this was amazingly good, and so SO easy! We all loved it (so much so that I completely forgot about the french bread we were supposed to be eating with it, which was the whole reason I made italian in the first place. Whoops! :)).
I made this tonight for dinner. I never write comments but this was good I had to leave a comment. It was delicious! Thanks!
Made this last night for my family (husband, 5 year old and 1 year old) and they all loved it! Had it with leftovers tonight and it was still delicious. Will be adding to our regular rotation, thanks!
Made this last night for my hubby. In Guy Fieri fashion he said, “You could serve that on a flipflop”. If that’s not a seal of approval, I don’t know what is. 🙂 Thanks!!!
Made this for lunch today. Super awesome and delicious! And it was so quick and easy and I had all the ingredients easily on hand!
Hi ladies! Just had to share this: I was suppose to bring 10 cups of alfredo sauce to a teacher appreciation luncheon today. Not wanting to make that much sauce, I just bought several jars of the pre-made stuff. Well, this morning I opened one of the jars and just could not bring myself to take that to a luncheon with my name on it–yuck! So I checked your website (always my first stop for recipes!), ran to the store, and spent the morning making 4 batches of this. It is so delicious and now I am proud to bring it to the luncheon! Thanks for saving me today! 🙂
Made this for my family tonight with grilled chickenmy son, the chef apprentice loved it.
I’ve made this recipe many times (including last night), and I just love it!! I throw in a little extra garlic for good measure. 🙂
Just one comment to add- last night I was talking to my sister, and she told me that she made this too (I posted the recipe/link on my blog), but didn’t love it. She said it turned out grainy. My guess as to what went wrong was correct, which was that she used pre-grated cheese. I always freshly grate my Parmesan, and didn’t even think about the fact that it might not work with pre-grated cheese. I just updated my blog to say that I recommend always using FRESHLY grated cheese for this.
I make this all the time and I always use pre-grated cheese. I have never had a problem. Did she use a blender to mix the flour in? Maybe it didn’t get mixed in well enough…
just wondering how much the recipes makes? wanted to make this for the family tonight and didnt know how many servings are in one batch. thanks!
Okay, so I feel like a loser because even though the taste was great, it turned out very runny. I followed the directions exactly and just went over it again to see if I did something wrong… I don’t think I did. I’m not that great of a cook anyway, so if you have any advice on thickening, that would be appreciated. (I did use skim milk instead of 1%, but a lot of other people mentioned they did too without any problems???)
You may have just not simmered it long enough Jasmine, sometimes you have to ignore the times mentioned and just cook it long enough for it to thicken.