Pumpkin Sweet Potato Alfredo Sauce

A rich, creamy, healthier Alfredo sauce infused with warm fall spices. 

‘Tis the season for pumpkin recipes so I wouldn’t be doing my job as a food blogger unless I created a pumpkin themed recipe for fall. In the past I’ve posted appetizer and dessert recipes but this year I decided to develop a pumpkin sauce that can be used in seasonal pasta entrees. Pumpkin Sweet Potato Alfredo Sauce is not as heavy as a traditional Alfredo sauce, which is typically made with Parmesan cheese, butter and heavy cream. Parmesan cheese is still a mainstay ingredient here, but this sauce gets much of its luxurious taste and texture from a combination of pumpkin and sweet potatoes mixed with milk and vegetable stock. 

Pumpkin Sweet Potato Alfredo Sauce is a rich and creamy sauce infused with warm, fall spices. It’s perfect to use in pasta casseroles or served atop fettuccine, and the color is absolutely gorgeous. It’s barely the middle of September so if you’re not quite ready for fall food yet, a dish served with this sauce will do the trick!

Pumpkin Sweet Potato Alfredo Sauce is substantially lower in fat and calories than regular Alfredo sauce. A popular brand of refrigerated Alfredo sauce (Buitoni) contains 300 calories per ½ cup serving vs. only 112 calories for Pumpkin Sweet Potato Alfredo Sauce. The disparity in “total fat” is even more striking – 28 grams in the Buitoni vs. only 4 grams in Pumpkin Sweet Potato Alfredo Sauce. That’s what I call healthy comfort food!

This recipe for Pumpkin Sweet Potato Alfredo Sauce makes a ton of sauce – about 1½ quarts (6 cups). I don’t like ending up with half used cans and jars of food when I cook, as they invariably get thrown away, so when I develop recipes I try to maximize the ingredients to avoid food waste. A more manageable yield would have been 3 or 4 cups but I scaled up the recipe in order to use the entire can of pumpkin. So, if you choose to make Pumpkin Sweet Potato Alfredo Sauce, not only will you avoid wasting a half used can of pumpkin, you’ll end up with extra sauce to freeze – win-win!   (The plates shown in this post are by Johnson Bros.  Pattern name – His Majesty.  Amazon link here and below.)

Pumpkin Sweet Potato Alfredo Sauce

 

Print

Author: QUEEN OF MY KITCHEN

Serves: 12 servings

Ingredients

• 2 medium sweet potatoes - about 15 ounces total weight
• 1 head of garlic
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 - 15 ounce can of pumpkin (see note)
• 2 cups unsalted vegetable stock
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon allspice
• ¼ teaspoon cloves

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prick the sweet potatoes all over with the tines of a fork and wrap them individually in aluminum foil.
2. Place the head of garlic on a piece of aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, and wrap this in foil as well.
3. Place the foil wrapped packages on a baking sheet and bake on the bottom rack of the oven.
4. After 45 minutes remove the garlic from the baking sheet and set aside to cool. Test the sweet potatoes. If they cannot be easily pierced with a toothpick through the foil, return them to the oven for another 5-15 minutes or longer until they're tender.
5. Once the foil packages are cool enough to handle unwrap them. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their papery skin into the carafe of a high-powered blender or the work bowl of a food processor. Cut away and discard the skins on the sweet potatoes and add them to the blender or food processor as well, along with the remaining ingredients. Process until completely smooth.
6. Transfer to a 3-quart sauce pan and warm on the stove-top over medium heat. Serve over pasta.
7. Makes about 6 cups

Notes

The only ingredient listed on the can should be pumpkin. Do not make the mistake of buying pumpkin pie filling.

This recipe makes 1½ quarts of sauce so be sure to use a blender or food processor with at least an 8-cup capacity or else combine the ingredients thoroughly and process the sauce in batches.

3.5.3228

LIKE THIS RECIPE?  PIN IT FOR LATER!