Does Olive Garden Make Their Alfredo Sauce To Order?
Olive Garden has become known for its well-priced Italian-American cuisine. The chain of eateries might be synonymous with bottomless breadsticks, but its creamy pasta dishes attract plenty of visitors, too. Olive Garden's Alfredo sauce can be served a few different ways: on its own or with chicken, shrimp, or steak. And if you were worried the Jimmy Fallon-approved chain wasn't keeping its sauce fresh, you can breathe a sigh of relief; Olive Garden actually makes its Alfredo sauce in multiple batches that are cooked fresh throughout the day, so while it's not necessarily made to order, it's not just sitting around unused for hours on end.
The brand occasionally gets a bad rap, with the internet sometimes making jokes about its quality, but according to its website, you'll never have to worry about its creamy Alfredo sauce coming from frozen. And if you're craving a plate but can't get to your nearest Olive Garden, there are also easy ways you can make your own sauce taste just like the restaurant's version.
Olive Garden's Alfredo sauce is made daily
Olive Garden's Alfredo dishes are the restaurant's most popular meals, and if it isn't broken, don't fix it. That's why Olive Garden hasn't changed its Alfredo sauce recipe since the restaurant first opened up shop more than 40 years ago in 1982. The ingredients are simple: a blend of cream, milk, and butter all come together with flour to create the base, then garlic is added along with Parmesan and Romano cheeses to get that hearty Italian flavor that seems to keep customers coming back. "Adding cream gives Alfredo sauce a richer, more full-bodied finish that Americans love," a spokesperson for the restaurant told Popsugar.
No, Olive Garden's Alfredo sauce is not made every time someone orders it — given that it's the most popular menu item, that would be quite hard. With that said, any time the sauce is close to running out, the restaurant whips up a fresh batch. And with its popularity, that means you're probably always getting a pretty fresh serving of sauce whenever you stop in and order it.
How to make Olive Garden's Alfredo sauce at home
The most important thing to know about Olive Garden's Alfredo sauce is that it's made with heavy cream. Traditional Alfredo sauce from Italy actually doesn't involve heavy cream, but many American versions of the dish do. If you want to make the Alfredo sauce at home, don't forget this ingredient.
There are plenty of "copycat" recipes of Olive Garden's Alfredo sauce around the internet, but the most important thing is to include the two cheeses (Parmesan and Romano), plus the five other ingredients that bring the sauce together. Olive Garden hasn't released its actual recipe, which means the true quantities aren't available, but you can start by adding flour and butter together to make a basic roux, then thickening it as desired with the addition of milk and cream. From there, capture the real flavor with the addition of the cheeses; how much you add is up to you, and since these cheeses are salty, adding more or less will greatly affect the overall flavor of the dish. One trick with cream sauce is to add a bit of starchy pasta water to it before combining it with the cooked pasta. This helps the pasta stick to the sauce and also helps emulsify the dish, blending the sauce even better.