Creamy Fettuccine With Mushrooms and Thyme

WOW is all I can say. This Creamy Fettuccine with Mushrooms and Thyme is a mouthful, but believe me when I say it has been the ultimate game-changer! When it comes to guilt-free pasta, this is it.

No more Olive Garden takeout. With this creamy fettuccine, you’ll be dining with a clear conscience and a full stomach on less than $5.00 a plate. Made with pantry staples and a few simple ingredients, humble pasta is transformed into a luxurious meal that tastes as good as it looks!

This Creamy Fettucine with Mushrooms and Thyme is affordable, healthy, and easy enough to make on a busy weeknight as a side or a meatless main course!

The Secret Is In The Sauce

I am a self-proclaimed pasta addict. Others will vouch for me on this. Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place to thoroughly enjoy a giant plate of creamy fettuccine alfredo with allll the fixings, but everything in moderation!

This recipe uses a special kind of sauce called Béchamel sauce. Firstly, butter and flour are cooked together to make a white roux (butter and flour 1:1 ratio), and then gradually mixed with milk to make a smooth and velvety sauce.

Béchamel sauce is one of the classic 5 French Mother Sauces. Used in both western and eastern cuisines, it is a super versatile sauce to have in your arsenal! It replaces the heavy cream in modern alfredo recipes and is definitely more waistline-friendly. It’s also not notoriously difficult to make by hand, unlike Hollandaise sauce, which brings me to my next point :

Béchamel vs. Hollandaise, What’s The Difference?

You may have seen hollandaise sauce on famous dishes like eggs Benedict or asparagus. It too, like Bechamel sauce, is a member of the 5 French Mother Sauces. Its creamy consistency mirrors that of bechamel sauce, but the two are distinctly different.

Béchamel Sauce

Béchamel sauce is made by first cooking butter and flour down into a paste, and then adding milk and whisking the sauce until it thickens. It does not require emulsification and relies on the proteins in the flour to thicken the sauce.

Hollandaise Sauce

Firstly, eggs, lemon juice, and occasionally dijon mustard are characteristic ingredients of Hollandaise sauce. Hollandaise sauce is made by the method of emulsification, similar to mayonnaise. Emulsification is when two ingredients (in this case melted butter) and an acid (lemon juice) are beaten vigorously with a binding agent (egg yolks) to form a silky sauce.

Hollandaise sauce is well known for being finicky to make; The sauce can break (meaning the oil and the egg yolks separate into a clumpy mess) and the temperature of the ingredients has to be spot on so the yolks don’t curdle.

As a result, the two sauces have very different methods of preparation and take on very different flavors. Béchamel sauce is traditionally very mild and serves to add a creamy component to dishes. Hollandaise sauce has a pronounced egg yolk flavor and serves to complement other flavors in a dish.

The secret to making this pasta taste *expensive* is Real. Parmesan. Cheese.

You really need to be using fresh parmesan cheese for this recipe if you don’t want a starchy, clumpy, stretchy sauce.

Trust me, I tried to cut corners once and use the powdery stuff (the cheese in the green can, you already know) and it just isn’t the same. The reason is that shelf-stable parmesan cheese has starch and other anti-caking agents in it to keep it from sticking together, and these anti-caking agents prevent the cheese from melting properly and wreak havoc when mixed into hot things like soup and sauces.

Don’t try to play house with the fake parmesan. It’s like a frenemy- it pretends it wants you to succeed and then sabotages you at the last second. It will most certainly clot up in your Béchamel sauce, and your creamy fettuccine will become clumpy fettuccine. Nope!

The first time I tried fresh parmesan, it changed my life. It was a never-look-back type of moment. Get yourself a nice wedge of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and grate it at home. Takes two seconds, it’s better for you and it’s MILES ahead of the stuff in the green can. I said what I said!

Why Flat Pasta Is Best For Creamy Sauces

In this recipe, I am using fettuccine pasta. “Little ribbons” in Italian, fettuccine is a wide and flat egg pasta that is excellent for holding creamy sauces. The long and smooth texture of fettuccine is the perfect match for a delicate sauce like Béchamel.

If you can’t find fettuccine, you can always use another flat, wide pasta like pappardelle, tagliatelle, or mafalda. Any tubular-shaped pasta would also work well for this recipe since the ridges and holes will help the sauce cling to the pasta.

Dietary Alternatives

Can you enjoy this pasta if you have special dietary needs? The answer is yes! Here are some good substitutes for the milk, pasta, butter, flour, and cheese in this recipe:

Milk

• Unsweetened cashew milk (if you don’t mind a slightly lumpy sauce, this will work)
• Unsweetened dairy-free half & half like Ripple Original (this is the ideal choice)

Flour

• Rice flour (gluten-free)

Pasta

• Brown rice pasta or another gluten-free pasta (Jovial is great)
• Veggie or lentil pasta like Banza
• Keto egg pasta (keto)
• Zoodles (low-carb)

Butter

• Vegetable shortening (vegetarian/vegan)
• Butter flavored vegan spread (vegetarian/vegan)

Cheese

• Cashew parmesan cheese (like Violife or Daiya)
• Nutritional yeast

Tips For Success When Making Creamy Fettuccine

• Stir the Bechamel sauce constantly to keep it from burning. This will help keep the flavor of the sauce refined.
• Cook the pasta until al dente, as the heat from the bechamel sauce will continue to cook it.
• Use real parmesan cheese instead of the processed variety to keep the sauce from becoming clumpy and stretchy.

INGREDIENTS  

• fettucine or other flat wide pasta
• button mushrooms, sliced
• baby spinach, washed
• garlic, minced
• dried thyme (or fresh chopped thyme)
• olive oil
• Chopped parsley, to serve

Béchamel Sauce

• all-purpose flour
• butter
• milk
• grated parmesan cheese
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS 

• Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add a handful of salt (you want the water salty like the sea). Add the fettucine. Cook until al dente, about 8-10 minutes. Drain and keep warm.
• While the pasta is boiling, heat the olive oil in a deep pan over medium high heat until shimmering.
• Add the mushrooms and cook until they soften and most of the moisture that is released evaporates.
• Add the garlic and thyme. Cook for 1 minute more. Transfer to a bowl.
• In the same pan, reduce the heat on the pan to medium. Melt the butter until frothy. Add the flour and whisk frequently to create a roux*. (*See Recipe Note)
• Gradually add in the milk (1/4 cup at a time) and whisk gently until sauce is thickened and coats the back of a spoon.
• Turn off the heat. Add in the parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Whisk until smooth.
• Add in the mushrooms, pasta, and spinach. Toss gently until the spinach is slightly wilted and pasta is coated.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and serve.