The dish is named after Alfredo Di Lelio, who featured the dish at his restaurant in Rome in the early to mid-20th century; the "ceremony" of preparing it tableside was an integral part of the dish. The dish became widespread and eventually spread to the United States, where it remains popular.

Creamy alfredo sauce made from scratch with ingredients like parmesan, cream, garlic and butter, served with fettuccine pasta and topped with sliced grilled chicken.

And Olive Garden built on that idea to develop its own recipe in the early 1980s, which includes butter, milk, cream, flour, garlic, imported parmesan cheese, and imported Romano cheese. "Adding cream gives alfredo sauce a richer, more full-bodied finish that Americans love," the Olive Garden spokesperson said.

Simple: a man named Alfredo di Lelio invented it. Di Lelio came up with this famous dish right here in Rome in 1908. Legend says that his wife had lost her appetite after giving birth, so he came up with this simple but delicious pasta recipe. Soon, it made an appearance on the menu at the family restaurant.

: a rich pasta sauce made with butter, Parmesan cheese, and often cream compare fettuccine alfredo.

Moreover, Italians are not thrilled that this recipe is so strongly associated with Italy, as it is not a traditional dish and there are recipes much more authentic, more representative and more identifying of the Bel Paese. Indeed, no real Italian restaurant has this pasta on the menu.

Ingredients US Customary Metric

1. 2 lbs Chicken Breast.
2. 3/4 lbs fettuccine pasta , (or angel hair or vermicelli pasta)
3. 1 lb white mushrooms, thickly sliced.
4. 1 small onion, finely chopped.
5. 3 cloves garlic, minced.
6. 3 1/2 cups half and half, *
7. 1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped,, plus more for garnish.

Fettuccine Alfredo Ingredients Butter: This Alfredo sauce starts with two sticks of butter. Cream: The rich sauce calls for almost a cup of heavy cream. Seasonings: The fettuccine Alfredo is simply seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Cheese: You'll need Romano and Parmesan cheeses.

Legend has it that in 1927, silent-film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks discovered this dish while honeymooning in Rome. Upon returning to Hollywood, they served it to friends; soon, fettuccine Alfredo was popular - but in a new, American guise.

A typical portion of this decadent dish has 1200 calories, 75 grams of fat, 47 grams of saturated fat and gives you more than half a day's worth of sodium. Yikes! Looking at a recipe, it's not hard to figure out why. The star ingredients are buckets of heavy cream, butter, cheese and mountains of pasta.

Italian Fettuccine Alfredo, it turns out, is 100% Italian. To be fair, the original recipe is quite different from whatever you may find in the States. Italians have been eating Fettuccine Alfredo for over a century… They just didn't know that's what it was called!

Moreover, Italians are not thrilled that this recipe is so strongly associated with Italy, as it is not a traditional dish and there are recipes much more authentic, more representative and more identifying of the Bel Paese. Indeed, no real Italian restaurant has this pasta on the menu.