Make This Chicken Alfredo Once and You'll Make It Forever

[00:01] make fun of American chicken Alfredo, but there is a very good reason it's so comforting, and when it's done right, it is truly hard to beat. Let me show you how I make my version. Now, let's go.

[00:14] by pounding out our chicken so it's all one thickness and therefore cooks evenly. Every bite is juicy and tender and delicious. And I used to do this using gallon Ziploc bags, but I don't know, man. It doesn't seem good with all

[00:27] use parchment paper. And you know, with any chicken breast, you have that tail end and the thick end. When you're doing this pounding, you want to focus on this pounding. I'll flip it over a few times as I go as well.

[00:52] going to season them up. Little bit of kosher salt and some Sergeant Gilbert reporting for duty. And of course, we'll do salt and pepper on both sides and little guys. And to do that, just set your pan over medium-high heat and let

[01:05] it heat up for at least like 2 and 1/2 3 minutes before you add any oil. Most people simply don't let their pan get hot enough before adding the oil and that's why they end up with no sear and therefore no flavor and therefore no you

[01:19] You get it. I'm just going to use a little bit of avocado oil for this. And you can see because that pan was hot, it's like rippling and smoking right away. Now, whenever you lay protein into a pan, you always lay away from

[01:32] yourself, right? Like that. So, if it splashes, it splashes on your cameraman and not you. And I'll continue to cook this chicken over medium-high heat for about 4 4 and 1/2 minutes per side. Normally, that would take longer, but

[01:44] because we pounded out this chicken breast, that is more than enough heat and time to get the job done. Now, if I wasn't filming a YouTube video right now, I would basically drop my pasta and start my chicken at the exact same

[01:56] moment. They should line up perfectly to be complete together at the same time. On another note, you'll find most Alfredo recipes online make the pasta in there's nothing wrong with that. I have another use for all that amazing fond

[02:09] you'll see that coming up. The reason I don't do it in that pan is because I want the Alfredo to remain like really creamy and white looking and have that contrast with the golden brown chicken. So, hope that makes sense. Now, before

[02:22] cooking. I'm in the kitchen all day testing recipes, prepping ingredients, and yes, washing all the dishes afterwards. And after a long day, evening and not have to cook. And I'll tell you what, it can be really nice to

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[03:30] to get 50% off your first Factor box plus free breakfast for 1 year. Now, cooking my pasta here in just a shallow pan because I want the starchy pasta water for this recipe. I don't like using too much water and I don't like

[03:44] couple pinches of salt and now we're going to add our pasta in. And as you can see here, it doesn't quite all fit. All part of the plan. You can just take a little spoon, just splash that water up there, and look, they'll be in here

[03:57] break that up. And I'm using fettuccine for this recipe, but you can literally those little I think it's or- or- orchietti? Orchietti? Orchietti? The well. But, just use whatever you got, man. It's not a big deal. Now, while

[04:12] sauce. And let me tell you something real quick. This is not a traditional Italian Alfredo recipe. What true Italian is is just butter, Parmesan, and pasta water. And it's a different technique. It's extremely delicious, but

[04:27] so is the American versions. A lot of Italians will come after you for making good, it's good. And trust me, this is the easiest layup of an amazing dinner start my pot over medium heat, and we'll add unsalted butter, quite a lot of it.

[04:42] going to add shallots, very finely minced. You could definitely use onion in its place, or just skip the onion entirely. Still be good. I just love shallots in this recipe. Garlic going in next, finely minced as well. And we're

[04:55] going to cook this over medium heat for about 4 or 5 minutes. We don't want any their flavor and sort of sweat these out a little bit. I'm also going to add a really don't need much at all because of the salt in the pasta water and all the

[05:08] Parmesan going in this recipe. You can oversalt it pretty easily, so make sure with chili flakes. If you don't like spicy, you can leave these out, but I stand out. That little bit of heat in the background really sets it off for

[05:23] me. But, careful with chili flakes because they will burn extremely quick. 15, 20 seconds here, toasting off in that butter, and then we're moving on to stop that cooking process by pouring in our cream. Ooh, look at that. Always

[05:36] a really light simmer. coming to a simmer, I'm going to start adding finely grated Parmesan cheese. Make sure you buy the real one, right? Parmigiano-Reggiano. It'll say that on

[05:49] haven't really tried this recipe with American knockoff, so if you do use an American knockoff, it's at your own risk cuz sometimes they don't work into the sauce as well. So once a little cheese is added, I just add more and we'll just

[06:02] continue working it in. I'm using a whisk now to really make this smooth. stages. And I can feel as I add that cheese, it's really making this sauce biggest mistakes I see people make when making an Alfredo cream sauce like this

[06:16] is they reduce it too much. They don't add any pasta water and then they add the pasta in and it gets way too thick and like almost splits and sort of grabs just too heavy. It's kind of gross actually. I think you always want to

[06:31] velvety and just coats it up without being too thick. And I'll show you some Last thing I'm going to add into my Alfredo is a whole bunch of black pepper. I think that combined with the chili flake really sets it off. Last

[06:45] thing we need to do for our sauce is simply give it a taste. And this is really for you know the salt level. It's so good every time. Easiest layup dish ever ever ever. I love cream sauce pastas. Italian, so suck on that.

[06:59] Cappuccino after 11:00 a.m. any day of the week. And now on our pan with the fond here, I'm simply just adding a touch of water, literally like less than a quarter cup. And then I'll just take wooden tool here and just scrape all

[07:11] it, but each little bit of fond here is just packed with flavor. So as this cooks down, it's actually going to make a pretty concentrated like little mini buttery gravy or whatever you want to call it. It's just a little pan sauce.

[07:24] I'll also pour in the drippings from our chicken pan as it's been resting. All that juice can go in there. And you can see when that's almost reduced all the a little bit and we'll just add a few little cubes of cold unsalted butter. I

[07:37] skip this step, but why not use this fond to build a little sauce? Now just finish with a little squeeze of lemon just to brighten it up, touch of seasoning, but it shouldn't need it cuz all that fond is really salty. And

[07:51] at that. Luscious. We'll just set it aside while we finish everything else. exactly 10 minutes, which is about a minute or two less than what the package says. We want it just under done, and then I'm just using my tongs here to get

[08:04] the pasta out cuz I don't mind that a little bit of pasta water is going in very long. Out she goes. And then I have this on medium heat, and we're just going to finish our pasta in the sauce. And as this cooks down for just a minute

[08:17] really thickens up. You can see, look, it's already getting a little too thick for my liking. And so what you do in that case is just add a little touch of And so if you're making dinner and you feel like your pasta doesn't look good

[08:31] chicken or whatever, you just add a little pasta water, warm it up, and it's mean, look at that. And there you have it, my friends. Plate it up, serve it chicken up and toss it in if you want. Finish it with that pan sauce, and you

[08:45] have Alfredo. You'll see, when you make Alfredo, you let it sit for even like 2 minutes, it's already absorbing all that cream, and it needs that little bit of pasta water to bring it back to that velvety state. Adding that pasta water

[08:57] want is is like a clutch move with this. We always bite at the same time. Nobody Wait. Wait. Wait. I got to twist, dude. Got to twist it up. Here we go.

[09:20] Mhm. It's so good. >> Like, if you're just learning how to cook and you want like one recipe to impress like your girlfriend or your friends or your parents or whatever, like that should be like number one.

[09:32] like that should be like number one. Make that. Yeah, make it.