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This cottage cheese alfredo is a lower fat, lower calorie version of the rich and creamy pasta favorite! One of the best cottage cheese recipes, it’s an easy dinner to make and the best part? You’d never even know it’s healthy.
Before You Get Started
- As-written, this alfredo sauce works best with about half a pound of prepared pasta, but you can easily double the recipe if needed. If you like a less-saucy pasta, though, feel free to keep the sauce recipe as it is and use a full pound of pasta.
How to Make This Recipe
See recipe card below for full list of measurements, ingredients, and instructions.
make the Sauce
Add all your ingredients to a blender or a food processor, then blend (or process) everything together until you’ve got a completely smooth mixture. Stop occasionally and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a silicone spatula so you get every single ingredient really well blended.
Heat the sauce
Pour your blended sauce into a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add however much dried basil and dried oregano you’d like, then heat the sauce gently until it’s nice and warm.
Cheryl’s Tip: Stir the sauce pretty often while it’s on the stovetop. You don’t want it to stick or burn or curdle!
Season the sauce
Now that it’s warm, taste it and stir in any spices or herbs you feel like it needs to be 100% perfect. Drop the heat to low and give it 5 more minutes to thicken up.
Cheryl’s Tip: The sauce reduces a bit while it thickens, so don’t leave it on the heat too long or you won’t have enough for your pasta.
Make it a Meal
When you’re happy with the flavor and the consistency of the cottage cheese alfredo, add your already-prepared pasta to the saucepan and coat it in sauce. Add any proteins or veggies, then portion it out and serve warm!
What I Love About This Recipe
- It’s wonderfully rich and creamy, thanks to the cottage cheese, but lower in fat and calories than the traditional versions. Also thanks to the cottage cheese!
- This cottage cheese recipe comes together really, really quickly. Like, you could make it almost entirely during the time your pasta is boiling.
- You can add all sorts of different spices or seasonings to this cottage cheese alfredo. It’s super versatile. In the mood for a lower fat Cajun alfredo? Toss in a little Tony Chachere’s or any other Cajun spice blend you like, then serve it with juicy blackened shrimp or blackened chicken.
Proof It’s Delicious (My Kid Said So)
So, I’ve made this cottage cheese alfredo for years at this point, long before I became a mom to my 9-going-on-19-year-old son. Early in our marriage this was my husband’s favorite recipe, the one he’d beg me to make over and over and over again. I always knew it’d be a guaranteed hit whenever I put it on the menu for the week.
What really put to bed any question, any doubts, regarding the obscene deliciousness of this alfredo variant, though, was my then-toddler’s reaction when I plopped down a plate of cottage-cheese-alfredo-coated pasta before him at dinnertime.
I share with you this gem of a memory from a post-update-past:
My kid freaked out because somewhere along the line that day he was promised “mac and cheese,” and I kind of thought this would work for that particular request. He wailed a bit but finally tried it. My picky, picky toddler then claimed,
“I love it so much. I want to eat it on Wednesday. I want to eat it on Monday. I want to eat it a lot of times when we come home.“
So… if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about this cottage cheese alfredo, I don’t know what would.
Recipe Variations
- Instead of basil and oregano, sprinkle in a bit of Cajun seasoning and serve with blackened chicken, tomatoes, and green onions for a Creole pasta.
- Use cultured cottage cheese to make this cottage cheese recipe even healthier.
- Try arrowroot powder instead of cornstarch if you have to or want to avoid corn.
Making changes to a recipe can result in recipe failure. Any substitutions or variations listed are simple changes that I believe will work in this recipe, but results are not guaranteed.
Cottage Cheese Alfredo
Equipment
- standard blender or food processor
- Silicone spatula
- Small saucepan
Ingredients
For the Cottage Cheese Alfredo Sauce
- 1 cup milk of choice see Notes
- ½ cup cottage cheese see Notes
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon salt more or less to taste
- ⅛ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper more or less to taste
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder plus more to taste
- ½ cup grated fresh parmesan or fresh romano
- dried basil to taste
- dried oregano to taste
Serving Suggestions (All Optional)
- prepared pasta any type, any amount
- prepared meat of choice
- prepared vegetables of choice
- chopped fresh parsley
Instructions
For the Cottage Cheese Alfredo Sauce
- Add 1 cup milk of choice, ½ cup cottage cheese, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon salt, ⅛ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper, ¼ teaspoon garlic powder, and ½ cup grated fresh parmesan to blender. Blend ingredients together until mixture is completely smooth, pausing to scrape down sides of blender as needed.
- When mixture is smooth, transfer mixture to small saucepan. Stir in desired amounts of dried basil and dried oregano, then place saucepan on stovetop over medium-low heat. Simmer mixture, stirring frequently, until sauce is heated through completely.
- Once sauce is heated through, taste sauce and add additional salt, pepper, basil, and/or oregano as desired.
- Reduce heat under saucepan to low. Simmer sauce approximately 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until mixture has thickened slightly.
To Serve
- Add desired amount of prepared pasta to sauce and use tongs to toss pasta, ensuring pasta is coated in sauce. Let pasta simmer in sauce approximately 2 to 3 minutes, then transfer pasta to serving plates or bowls.
- Top pasta with prepared meat of choice or prepared vegetables of choice as desired. Spoon any remaining alfredo sauce from saucepan over pasta, then garnish with chopped fresh parsley and serve immediately.
Video
- Make it Low Fat: Use skim milk, low-fat cottage cheese, and reduced-fat parmesan cheese.
Approximate Information for One Serving
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
Did You Make This Recipe?
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Very good recipe! I also added one clove of fresh garlic and a dash of lemon juice because a hint of acid is great in Alfredo.
Yumm, that sounds delish!
Had this recipe on my mind for two weeks before I got to make. I have to say it was better than my expectations. In fact it’s one of the best I’ve tasted. So good!! Thanks for sharing it with all of us here!
We’re so happy you loved it! Thanks for sharing, Vera!
I made this for dinner last night & it was great! Easy to make & tasty. I’ll definitely make this again & soon! Thanks!
We’re so happy to hear it! Thanks for sharing, Andrea! 😊
This was so good. Much lighter than normal Alfredo, but great flavor.
We’re so glad you enjoyed it, Diane! 😊
Do you have recommendations for making it ahead and storing it in the fridge for a few days? Would you store it before or after you put the blended mixture back on the stove to heat and thicken, or before?
Thanks! The recipe is delicious!
Hi, Grace! We would store it after it has thickened! I hope this helps! 😊
Very good – thank you!
We’re so glad you enjoyed it!
Woah how’s it soo good? Added spinach.
We’re so glad you loved it, Lynn!
Easiest, fastest, super tasty AND so few ingredients. Used my Vitamix to make it perfectly smooth and tossed the sauce with sautéed asparagus, carrots and orzo because that’s what I had on hand. So happy to have found this recipe!
Ooh, that sounds delicious! Thanks for sharing, Ronda! 😊
I tried to make this – twice.
Both times it separated after just a few minutes on the stove – fairly low heat induction stove. Never got that warm.
What am I doing wrong????
I’m so sorry, Kimberly! Were your ingredients completely room temperature? If they were cold at all, heating them up can cause them to separate. Also, were you using fresh cheese, or prepackaged? Prepackaged grated/shredded cheeses contain fillers to prevent clumping, and those fillers can keep the cheeses from melting and incorporating like they should. That can throw off the consistency of the sauce, too.
The sauce tasted really good. The texture was very light and airy maybe due to blending in the Ninja processor. I told my kids it was cloud Alfredo. They enjoyed it even though they could tell it was not authentic Alfredo. The taste was good, it was just a light fluffy texture. I added Truff Truffle salt for added umami flavor. I enjoyed it as it had way less fat and didn’t feel so heavy .
Ooh, yum! Truffle salt sounds like a delicious addition! Thanks for sharing, Mary. 😊