Who doesn’t love Alfredo sauce? Too bad it’s so expensive to make – thanks to all that Parmesan cheese. And for us, we can’t use the jarred variety anyway – even if we wanted to. It’s all gluten-free recipes for us.
A couple years ago, I came across a recipe using white beans and a minimal amount of cheese to make a mock Alfredo sauce, and never looked back. In fact, this recipe has become one of my favorites to incorporate into my Eat Beans Every Day Menu Plan!
The addition of the beans, along with the omission of much of the cheese and cream turn this from an expensive, high fat dish, to a frugal, high protein-high fiber dish. What’s not to love about that?!
As a bonus, you can serve it to bean haters without them ever knowing they’re eating beans. This dish just keeps getting better.
A few nights ago, when I served the fettucinni Alfredo pictured above, I told Gabriel we were having beans and rice for dinner – and we were! Who says a beans and rice diet has to be boring.
I love how forgiving this sauce is. It’s easy to make variations on. For example, you can use as much, or as little cheese as you want, or whatever kind of cheese you want. Same with beans. And if, for some reason you need to use fewer beans in your sauce (as in, you don’t have enough for the volume of sauce you want to make), you can thicken it with cornstarch somewhat before blending the beans in.
PrintWhite Bean Alfredo Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 Cups cooked white beans
- 3/4 – 1 cup milk or cream
- 1/2 cup shredded cheese
- 1/2 tsp. onion powder
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Place all ingredients in a blender, and blend until smooth. Heat and serve. Alternatively, you can place the whole ingredients in a sauce pan and blend with an immersion blender
.
It’s that easy!
Recipe notes:
- I typically use cheddar cheese, but have used many different kinds with great results – including pepper-jack.
- In my opinion, great northern beans are the best because they blend smoother than navy beans – but again, you can use whatever you like
- home-cooked beans are better in this case (and cheaper!) than canned beans because again, they blend more smoothly
- If you make a bulk batch of this, be aware that it’s difficult to get larger volumes smooth with the stick blender (see pic above).
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Becca says
I love this blog! Thanks for sharing all of your awesome ideas!
Elise says
Thank you! I’m so glad you find it helpful!