Experimental Ricotta Pasta Sauce

I had a pasta dish at a restaurant that had Alfredo sauce with tomatoes on top, and the tomatoes were really basily and garlicky, and it was super good, and I wanted to try something like it at home. Except I know Alfredo is the delicious sauce of the devil and I pretty much never eat it except on special occasions. Alfredo has like 800 grams of fat a serving, I just can't justify it even though I love it.

So I thought, hey, I can make something that kind of approximates Alfredo with ricotta, parmesan, and milk, right? And then put some basily-garlicky tomatoes on top?



Well, it wasn't all that much like Alfredo sauce, but it was still really good. The end result tasted more like mushed-up lasagna. Hey, lasagna is good stuff though. I liked it.

Here's what I did.

First, I drained one can of petite-diced tomatoes & added a bunch of garlic (the kind from the jar) and basil (I used fresh because it looked nice at the store, but you can use the kind from the jar if you want) and a little salt & pepper. I did this a couple hours ahead of time & stuck it in the fridge, but that wouldn't be absolutely necessary.

Then at dinner time, I started the pasta water heating & dumped a container of low-fat ricotta in a pot & turned the fire on pretty low. I stirred in a hefty handful of grated parmesan cheese & a dash of 2% milk, then I decided it wasn't saucy enough & put in some more milk - it was maybe 1/2 cup all told. I threw in a smidge of garlic & a little salt & pepper. This mixture needed to be stirred a lot so it didn't bubble or burn. I just kept it over low heat the whole time the pasta was cooking.

Right when I put the pasta in the water, I put the tomato mixture in a small pot over a pretty high fire, to warm it up & cook off a little liquid. Stir occasionally.

I served it as above, with the tomatoes on top of the ricotta sauce, but I just ended up mixing it all together. It was delicious! If I do it again, I will add more parmesan - maybe a handful and a half. :) It tasted really parmesany in the pot, but when all the stuff was mixed together, I think the other flavors overwhelmed the parmesan a little & you couldn't really taste it.

Using 3 pots to make one dish is more complex than I usually bother with! But it was worth it, and I had yummy leftovers for lunch today.