When it comes to cooking and making sure that you use all of the ingredients you have, you are always going to want to make sure that you have uses in mind for any potential leftovers.
There are some leftover ingredients that are considerably easier to plan for than others. For example, if you make too much rice or pasta, you can generally just make another dish involving those ingredients, especially considering how many dishes use those ingredients.
There are other dishes and ingredients out there that are a lot more difficult to accommodate toward having extras. One of the most common ingredients that people tend to have trouble with includes sauces.
From tomato sauces, to more specialized sauces that are used for only a few dishes, there are countless different sauces that you may end up having leftovers of.
Naturally, it can go without saying that one of these dishes you may have leftovers of is going to be alfredo sauce. Alfredo sauce is most commonly found in the dish of the same name, fettuccine alfredo.
Whether you are not in the mood to make another helping of this dish or you are looking for more unique ways to utilize your remaining alfredo sauce, there are more than a few things that you can do with it.
Making Use of the Alfredo Sauce as-Is
If you need to urgently use the remaining alfredo sauce that you have left, you may not know of a quick and efficient way to take care of it that won’t involve going to the store and purchasing a number of different ingredients.
While alfredo sauce may not be as common as other sauces out there, there are still plenty of different ways that you can make use of your leftovers.
For instance, you can use it as a dip for other foods. Alfredo sauce functions quite similarly to cheese sauce in taste and texture, so if you are looking for a dip that can bring a tasty twist to your snack, replacing your standard cheese dip with alfredo sauce can easily get the job done.
In fact, this is going to be one of the easiest ways that you can make use of your alfredo sauce, aside from cooking it into some more pasta, as all you will have to do is help yourself to the sauce and you will be good to go.
In a similar fashion, you can also consider using alfredo sauce as an alternative to tomato sauce on pizzas. If you are not looking to be particularly specific about what you call the pizza sauce, you can easily use alfredo sauce as a replacement for a sauce that is more commonly known as “white sauce” in regards to pizza.
Even if you are used to the traditional white sauce, the extra ingredients in most alfredo will help it add even more twist to your pizza, making it unique and something that you can truly enjoy.
Baking the Sauce Into Foods
If you are looking for a solution to your overabundance of alfredo sauce that is a little bit more unique and creative than simply using the sauce as a dip or a pizza sauce, there are countless recipes out there that focus on using alfredo sauce as a core part of its ingredients and flavor profile.
Of course, there are going to be a plethora of varieties on the standard fettuccine alfredo recipe. Some of these variants will include more meats and vegetables, while others may focus on a particular flavor, such as the combination of both chicken and pepper.
When it comes to making your own fettuccine alfredo dish, the choices are completely up to you in this department, allowing you to create the dish that you have always wanted.
Many people will also incorporate alfredo sauce into a variety of pasta bakes. The herbs in alfredo can add some unique undertones to an otherwise standard pasta bake dish, allowing you to add more flavor and personality to your usual meals.
Alfredo sauce can go particularly well with beef, ham, garlic, and cheese. The best part about both the previous dish and this dish is that you don’t necessarily need to use the “right” noodles as long as you keep the texture of the dish you are looking for.
On the idea of pizzas from earlier, you can spend a bit more time and effort and turn your “pizza” craving into something different than your standard pizza dish. This dish will start out as a standard pizza, but with garlic and ham to top the pizza as well as a cheese of your choice.
You will use alfredo sauce in lieu of using tomato sauce or other common pizza sauces. Doing this creates a tasty pizza dish that won’t necessarily come across as pizza on the first glance if you are making snacks for a gathering.
Another idea that you could consider is using alfredo sauce in your lasagna. Lasagna is typically a very heavy and hearty meal, but if you are interested in putting a twist on the classic taste and presentation of your usual lasagna, using alfredo sauce is going to be the best way to go about doing so.
For this type of recipe, instead of using entirely tomato sauce, you will use a combination of both tomato and alfredo sauce, with the proportions to your liking, creating a blend of flavors that you may not expect.
If you are someone who tends to enjoy soups more than solid foods, or you know that you are going to need an easy to digest soup and you want to have a recipe prepared, you may want to consider the idea of putting your alfredo sauce into soup.
The ingredients of alfredo sauce can easily turn any soup into a creamier and heartier version of itself. One dish that works particularly well with the use of alfredo sauce is chicken, gnocchi, and pesto soup.
Some people will also use the sauce as a topping with some extra additions to it to help it fit the dish. A good example of this is what people have done with grilled apples and chicken. By choosing to grill both chicken and apples on the grill together, you can add a bit of each other’s flavor to both foods.
When it comes time to serve the chicken alongside the apples, you may want to have a sauce on the side so that people can enjoy their chicken with some added flavor.
For this kind of flavor palate, you are going to want to use a small amount of alfredo sauce with more parmesan cheese mixed in to help the texture of the dish.
Unless you want the apples to have a more savory than sweet taste to them, you should try and keep the apples away from the alfredo sauce.
Finally, you can consider adding your alfredo sauce to heavier, meatier dishes. The naturally creamy aspect of alfredo sauce can offset some of the effects of meat, and the mild herb taste can add just the right amount of punch to your dish.
This is especially apparent in dishes such as cordon bleu, where the ingredients include turkey, ham, and bacon all wrapped in dough and cheese.
Here, adding some alfredo sauce can pack the punch that your cordon bleu really needs to outshine any competition that it can encounter.
Sarah is the founder of Baking Kneads, LLC, a blog sharing guides, tips, and recipes for those learning how to bake. Growing up as the daughter of a baker, she spent much of her childhood learning the basics in a local bakery.