Peeled deveined shrimp, scallops, and a little bit of shrimp stock
Take some of the adobo, the thick sauce in the can of chipotle chiles and add it to the sauce.
ATK has a recipe with 1 1/2 cups of cream. The one cup amount is simmered for about 15 minutes until it’s reduced by half. Then you pour back in the 1/2 cup reserved cream to restore the fresh flavor. It makes it just a bit thicker so it clings well to the pasta.
high quality butter and cheese are near impossible to find in the middle of nowhere (and way out of my price range when they do turn up), so I appreciate little cheats like this.
I was going to say this.
Add some pieces of chicken breast and asparagus. The Cheesecake Factory has a similar dish and I crave it sometimes. It’s so good, but then I love chipotle flavor.
A small dash of nutmeg is almost de rigeur in dairy-based sauces. I personally don’t usually do it for alfredo, but most cream sauces I find do well with the addition of just a little bit of nutmeg (for example, my bechamel always has nutmeg). It shouldn’t taste like Christmas, but just enough to give you a little bit of subtle spice.
As much as I love garlic, alfredo shouldn’t have garlic. American versions of Italian recipes tend to go overboard on the garlic. It’s a matter of taste, so if you like it, that’s fine.
This cannot be stressed enough. There are many very very simple recipes that are simply sublime, but they live and die based on the quality of ingredients. Alfredo is one of them. To tell you the truth, the most memorable meals I’ve had have been incredibly simple preparations, it’s just the quality of ingredients and their preparation that really made them shine. The very best pizza I’ve ever had (the marghareta at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix) is just topped with crushed tomatoes, housemade mozzarella, and fresh basil on the most perfect, flavorful, heavenly, lightly charred, ever-so-slightly soured wood-fired crust.
No kidding!
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people remark on my food and ask how I made it so well, and so much of the time the answer is “I didn’t buy the cheapest, most mass-produced shit at the grocery store.”
And I’m not talking about buying the stuff in the fancy packaging or imported from Gourmetmastan or whatever. I’m talking about buying fresh veggies from the Farmer’s Market in the summer, or buying chunk cheese and grating it myself, not the pre-grated stuff that has fillers to keep it from clumping and preservatives and all that. You don’t need much Parmesan for Alfredo for 2 or 4 people; buy the good stuff. After all, there’s no meat in the dish, so you’re saving money there.
Margarine
Kraft 100% Parmesan Grated Cheese
Skim milk.
My fabulous little local Italian joint puts some kind of awesome shaved ham in their Alfredo- sometimes ( they are very good, if not very consistent).
::Hurk::
I just threw up a little in my mouth.
A bit like feta.
where’s that barfy smilie?
I’d love to see a picture of that!
Try it with Asiago or Romano cheese instead of Parmesan and substitute allspice for the nutmeg.
What a coinkydink; I just made a batch from a process from this old thread that I bookmarked just for that purpose!
The key, apparently, is to mix the pasta with the sauce, not pour it on top. But take a look at that thread; the results were certainly to my liking.
ETA: And you will have to read the thread; the OP missed mentioning how much parmesan to use until later. 
(And Firefox doesn’t acknowledge the existence of parmesan?!? Blasphemy!!!)
Whoa! Time warp. Interesting seeing how my tastes have gravitated from CREAM!!! to cream, I could take it or leave it. The cream-based versions, though, are more what most people in the US are used to.
Last Alfredo I made was a Chicken Fettucini Alfredo. I sauteed/browned the Chicken breast, sliced it, and boiled the noodles first, to have everything ready to go in the alfredo sauce a la minute.
In a large saucepan over medium flame, I added a small 8 ounce carton of Heavy whipping cream and still another small carton of Half and Half, let that come to a bubble and slight simmer, popped in about 2-3 tablespoons of cold butter and shook the butter in or emulsified it gently so as not to break, added about 1/2-3/4 cups of Kraft 100% Parmesan Grated Cheese and stirred/emulsified to combine. I added some pepper and the fettucini noodles and chicken pieces and then tossed to combine. Simple as that.
…and I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with Kraft Parmesan, it’s pretty good in this application, and well, that’s all that was available or I otherwise could afford.
Sometimes I add pumpkin pie spice when I’m out of nutmeg.