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Olive Garden Chicken Alfredo

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By Brooke McLay
Updated Oct 17, 2024
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If you love the rich and creamy Alfredo chicken dish at your favorite restaurant, you’ll love this recipe even more. It has the same velvety sauce made with cream, Parmesan, butter, and garlic, served over crispy chicken and tender fettuccini noodles—but at a smidgen of the price. You may have thought that making this dish would be hard to do, but we’ll show you just how easy it can be. We’ve figured out just how to orchestrate all the components from cooking the noodles, making the sauce, and cooking the chicken—to be ready to serve in just 30 minutes!

What’s the secret? While you’re cooking the pasta, you’re also cooking the chicken. Use a stove-top grill pan to quickly cook the chicken to golden-brown crust perfection. While the chicken is cooling, make the simple Alfredo sauce. Grab a pasta bowl, create a bed of noodles, slice and add the chicken, top with Alfredo sauce and voila! A restaurant quality meal without leaving home.

How to Make Olive Garden Chicken Alfredo

Look at these simple steps, to see how to make Olive Garden chicken Alfredo. This recipe requires some dovetailing—working on one part of the recipe while another cooks, for example, but anyone can do it with the tips below. Follow the recipe for all the cooking times and specific instructions, so it will turn out just as well as if you ordered it at the restaurant:

Gather the Ingredients

This recipe isn’t complicated to make, as long as you’ve prepped the ingredients in advance. Gather all of the Olive Garden chicken Alfredo ingredients, measuring and chopping them, so they are ready to be put to work just when you need them.

Cook the Pasta

Heat the water to boiling and cook the pasta as directed on the package. Drain the fettuccine and keep it warm while preparing the other components.

Cook the Crispy Chicken

While your water is heating and while the pasta cooks, you can quickly prepare the chicken breast in a cast iron grill pan. Use a little butter and olive oil for flavor and to keep it from sticking. Season the chicken on the pan with both salt and pepper. The grill pan will give the chicken a golden-brown, slightly crispy crust that not only looks beautiful, but is delicious to eat.

Cool and Slice the Chicken

Place the cooked chicken on a plate covered with foil until it is cool enough to slice and then until you’re ready to serve it. You can cut it after making the sauce if you like. Cut the chicken pieces crosswise into thin slices.

Start the Sauce by Cooking the Garlic

For the start of the Alfredo sauce, melt the butter in a skillet and cook the garlic until it’s fragrant. Reduce the temperature and add the remaining salt and pepper.

Making a Smooth Sauce

Use a whisk to stir in the flour until the mixture is smooth. Slowly stir in the cream. It’s important to go slow and keep stirring to get a smooth sauce.

Cook to Thicken and Add Parmesan

Cook and stir the sauce until it thickens slightly. Still using the whisk, stir in the Parmesan cheese until smooth. Remove from heat and cover while you cut the chicken and gather serving bowls or plates.

Putting It All Together

Use large tongs to arrange the pasta in the serving bowl or on a plate. Top with slices of chicken and spoon the sauce over the top. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley and additional Parmesan, if you like.

Variations of Olive Garden Chicken Alfredo

With the amazing flavor of homemade Alfredo sauce and the heartiness of this dish, this recipe will surely become a frequently requested one in your house. Here are some straightforward ways you can change it up:

Make it Skillet Chicken: If you don’t have a stove-top grill pan, the next best option would be a cast iron skillet or a regular skillet. In step 2, heat the oil and the butter in the skillet. Cook as directed in step 2, but adjust the cook times, if necessary.

Swap the Pasta: You could use spinach fettuccine or egg noodles if you wish. Just cook them as directed on their package. Either would be a suitable alternative, because wide noodles hold the luscious Alfredo sauce perfectly.

Alfredo Flavor in Every Bite: Try tossing the cooked fettuccine with some of the Alfredo sauce before serving it to assure that each forkful you get has a little of the good stuff. Spoon the remaining sauce over the chicken and fettuccine, as directed in step 7.

Green is Good: Add cut-up cooked asparagus, broccoli, or green beans before topping with Alfredo sauce, for a veggie boost that also adds color.

More Copycat Olive Garden Recipes

If you love this crispy chicken Alfredo Olive Garden-style recipe, then you’ll also get excited about these other recipes we’ve developed, from your favorite restaurant. You can have the full restaurant experience without the bill at the end, when you make all three. Or, add one alongside other dinner dishes you serve, to have a touch of a familiar favorite, any time you please.

Light and fluffy copycat Olive Garden breadsticks are brushed with a garlicy butter topping, for the famous flavor everyone loves to sink their teeth into. Copycat Olive Garden minestrone soup is chock full of veggies and hearty enough to serve as a meal on its own or, when your family is extra-hungry, it’s a tasty belly-filler when served alongside other dishes.

Don’t end your meal with just the green striped mints, why not whip up a batch of Easy Mint Candy Cookies? They are made with the same mints but are satisfying treats you can really sink your teeth into.

Storing and Reheating Leftovers

If you’re lucky enough to have leftovers of this chicken Alfredo pasta Olive Garden dish, they would make an amazing hot lunch or a very quick dinner. You only need to zap it in the microwave before you enjoy. For the best results, it’s best to store each of the components-the Alfredo sauce, chicken, and the fettuccine. separately in covered food-storage containers so they retain as much of their original consistencies as possible. Otherwise, if the sauce is stored with the pasta, the pasta will continue to absorb it, making it much less saucy and drier when reheated. Store any leftovers in the refrigerator up to 5 days.

To reheat the pasta, place it in a microwavable bowl. Sprinkle with a teaspoon or two of water. Cover and microwave on High 1 to 3 minutes, or until its heated through. To reheat the chicken, place it on a microwavable plate. Cover and microwave on medium-high (70%) 1 to 1 1/2 minutes or until heated through. Keep covered while you reheat the sauce. To reheat the sauce, spoon it into a microwavable glass measure or bowl. Cover and microwave on medium (50%) 1 minute; stir. Microwave 30 seconds to 1 minute longer or until heated through. If the sauce is too thick after heating, stir in a tablespoon or two of additional cream or milk. Microwave about 15 seconds longer, or until the sauce is heated through.

It is not recommended to freeze this dish. The sauce will soak into the pasta during storage leading to freezer burn of exposed pasta noodles.

Other Amazing Pasta Recipes

Pasta dishes are not only delectable, but they are also hearty, filling, and can be easy on your wallet, too. With the endless choices of pasta shapes and recipes, you could enjoy a different dish, every night of the week!

One-Pot Lemon Chicken Rigatoni will have you jumping for joy. Parmesan and lemon are a flavor match made in heaven and this all-in-one dish keeps the cleanup afterwards, painless.

Easy Fajita Pasta Bake stuffs the familiar and favorite flavors of chicken fajitas into a delicious casserole that’s sure to please. Great for when you need a hot and hearty dinner that’s on the table in 30 minutes.

Chicken Spaghetti to the rescue! This top-rated one-pot dinner requires just 8 ingredients, for a fast and flavorful twist on the family favorite. Looking to whip up a pasta dish using your multicooker?

Spaghetti Bolognese is a sensational way to enjoy a richly flavored spaghetti dish that has pasta, veggies, and sauce all in one casserole prepared on your countertop.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can This Recipe be Made Ahead of Time?

To get a jump on the preparation of this dish, you could make the Alfredo sauce ahead of time and reheat it when you’re ready to serve. The pasta and chicken will have the best texture if they are cooked just before they are served.

You can make the Alfredo sauce in advance, following step 4 through step 6. Allow it to cool at least 15 minutes before transferring it to a food-storage container. Cover and refrigerate the sauce up to 5 days. When you’re ready to reheat it, follow the guidance in the storing and reheating leftovers section above.

Can I Use Different Kinds of Chicken in this Recipe?

For the quickest cooking and the easiest eating, boneless chicken is the best kind to use for this recipe. You can use boneless chicken thighs in place of the chicken breast if you wish. They take less time to cook than breasts, so you’ll have to adjust the cook time.

But those aren’t your only boneless options—try frozen boneless chicken wings, frozen chicken breast fillets, grilled and ready oven-roasted chicken breast, or even popcorn chicken, instead. You can go for one that is lightly breaded or one that is extra crispy—it’s whatever you prefer. Cook or reheat the chicken as directed on the package. Omit the olive oil, butter, boneless chicken breast, and salt and pepper. Skip steps 2 and 3 in the recipe except—slice the cooked chicken you used, if it isn’t in bite-size pieces.

Olive Garden Chicken Alfredo

  • Prep Time 30 min
  • Total 30 min
  • Ingredients 11
  • Servings 4
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Ingredients

  • 12 oz fettuccine pasta
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, divided
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper, divided
  • 3 cloves garlic, very finely chopped
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 3/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for topping if desired
  • 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

  • Step 
    1
    Cook and drain pasta according to package directions. Return pasta back to pan; cover to keep warm.
  • Step 
    2
    Meanwhile, add olive oil to a cast-iron grill pan over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons butter to hot pan, then quickly add chicken breasts to the pan, seasoning with 1 teaspoon each of the salt and pepper. Cook chicken breasts until golden on first side, then flip over. Cover the pan and reduce heat to medium. Cook chicken 5 to 7 minutes or until instant-read meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part reaches 165°F.
  • Step 
    3
    Cut into strips; place on a plate and cover with foil.
  • Step 
    4
    In a large, deep-sided skillet, melt remaining 1/2 cup butter over medium heat. Add garlic to pan, cooking until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Reduce heat to medium-low. Season with remaining salt and pepper.
  • Step 
    5
    Whisk flour into butter, stirring until no chunks remain. Slowly whisk in cream.
  • Step 
    6
    Continue to cook just until sauce is steaming and slightly thickened. Whisk 1/2 cup Parmesan into sauce, stirring until smooth. Remove pan from heat and cover until ready to serve.
  • Step 
    7
    To serve, place pasta in a serving bowl or on plates. Top with sliced chicken and drizzle with sauce. Garnish with parsley and top with additional Parmesan, if desired.

Nutrition

1100 Calories
80g Total Fat
32g Protein
63g Total Carbohydrate
4g Sugars

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: 1 Serving
Calories
1100
Calories from Fat
720
Total Fat
80g
123%
Saturated Fat
44g
220%
Trans Fat
2 1/2g
Cholesterol
325mg
108%
Sodium
1570mg
65%
Potassium
380mg
11%
Total Carbohydrate
63g
21%
Dietary Fiber
3g
12%
Sugars
4g
Protein
32g
% Daily Value*:
Vitamin A
45%
45%
Vitamin C
0%
0%
Calcium
15%
15%
Iron
25%
25%
Exchanges:
3 Starch; 0 Fruit; 1 Other Carbohydrate; 0 Skim Milk; 0 Low-Fat Milk; 0 Milk; 0 Vegetable; 0 Very Lean Meat; 3 1/2 Lean Meat; 0 High-Fat Meat; 13 1/2 Fat;
Carbohydrate Choice
4
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
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