Alfredo Crawfish With Penne Pasta

Submitted by Jeff Cheffro White

"This recipe uses an authentic, homemade alfredo cream sauce as a base, so if staying light is the goal...this won't fit your flight-plan. It uses real butter and heavy cream and other ingredients to make a dish of goodness you've only had in top restaurants. The good news is, it's quick and easy enough for a novice to make with good results. (Unless you cook on HIGH and burn the butter like one of the reviewers did... :-)) Enjoy!"

 

• Ready In: 40mins
• Ingredients: 15
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• 1⁄2 lb sweet creamy butter (salted)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 1⁄2 cups grated parmesan cheese
• 1⁄2 cup Velveeta cheese (cubed)
• 2 lbs crawfish tails
• 1 cup thinly sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1 lb dry penne pasta
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 green onions (chopped)
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon cajun seasoning
• 1⁄2 chopped fresh parsley
• 1⁄2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

directions

1. melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Once butter stops foaming, add the garlic and cook about 2 minutes. It's important to note, I said medium heat. I didn't say high or medium high. Butter is something you'll need to watch or you will ruin this dish before it begins. Add the thyme, cayenne pepper, black pepper and Cajun seasoning.
2. Add the flour and cook another 3 minutes until flour is incorporated and begins to make a light roux. Yes -- 1/2 LB of butter and 1 Tablespoon of all purpose flour CAN make a roux. It's basically a thickened butter. Roll with it --.
3. Add heavy cream and bring to low simmer. Add the Parmesan and Velveeta cheese and stir until creamy. *Sure you can use other cheeses and I'm sure the results will be amazing. Make sure it is a good melting cheese or blend of cheeses. I used Velveeta here because I wanted it to be easy.
4. Once the sauce is cooked to your desired thickness, add the chopped green onion and crawfish (thawed and patted dry) to the sauce.
5. Serve over al dente penne pasta and garnish with fresh parsley.

Reviews

[Alexis V.]

This recipe was Spot On!! I did not change a thing and it was Delicious!!

 

[Tina C.]

I have made the recipe before and it is super yummy! This time I am using 1 lb of crawfish and 1 lb of salad shrimp & queso blanco with jalapeno.

 

[lidlamzdiv]

This idea is wonderful but ingredient amounts don’t make sense. 2 sticks of butter (1/2 lb) to 1 T. Flour does not make a roux. 1/2 C (1 stick) might work. And sorry but, Velveeta? Really? I might try this with some Real Cheese sometime.

 

[mainecoon789]

OMG delicious. Being a Yankee (and pretty "meh" about seafood anyway), crawfish isn't easy to find locally, so I substituted Andouille sausage. (Shrimp would probably work well here too.) Velveeta grosses me out so I subbed in about 2 ounces Organic Valley processed American cheese. Other than that followed the recipe. Thanks for sharing! Oh, almost forgot, didn't have mushrooms on hand so I added a diced red bell pepper this time. Really tasty.

 

[Katherine R.]

Absolutely awful directions. When butter stops bubbling it's brown. Ingredients did not incorporate and nowhere were there instructions to add the mushrooms. I ended up ditching the sauce before I wasted my crawfish in it. Back to searching for a better crawfish pasta recipe.