Butter Cream Pasta Sauce with Leeks and Mushrooms
This is a wonderfully easy, quick to make, rich and satisfying pasta sauce. We use it on practically every type of pasta there is!
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp butter
- ¼ cup leek tops and tail trimmed off, then chopped
- 1 cup chopped baby portabella mushrooms
- 1 clove garlic minced
- ¼ cup white wine
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- 1 cup parmesan cheese fresh grated
- 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
Instructions
- In a medium skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add leeks, mushrooms, and garlic and cook, stirring every so often 7-8 minutes. Don't let leeks or garlic brown — simply sauté until leeks are soft and fragrant, and mushrooms have released their liquid and have shrunk in size.
- Add in white wine and allow to "cook out" as you stir occasionally. Cook until liquid in pan is reduced by half, and has thickened a bit. About 3-4 minutes
- Lower heat to medium low. Slowly add in cream and stir gently with spatula to combine. Allow cream to warm and start steaming a bit, then add in parmesan cheese ¼ cup at a time. With each cheese addition, continually stir until cheese is totally combined. Aim for an even mix of cheese to the liquid so you don't end up with globs of cheese. Should take another 2-3 minutes for this step.
- Increase heat back to medium, allow sauce to come to a low simmer (just bubbling at edges). Stir occasionally allowing sauce to thicken, 2-3 minutes, then kill the heat. Season with fresh ground pepper.
Notes
Ditch the mushrooms if you don’t want them (although they truly add a huge amount of unami to this sauce). For a big taste kicker if you ditch the mushrooms, add in some chopped bacon that has been fried off and drained. Add it in at the very end.
Feel free to add more parmesan to both thicken and season the sauce to your liking. I will simply warn you that parmesan is a salty cheese (hence why I don’t season in this recipe other than the black pepper), so be aware of that. Also, the pungent parm flavor will eventually dominate the subtle leek and garlic flavors as you add it.
For pasta choices, you can be simple and just cook up some very al dente flat lasagna sheets (not the frilled edge Americanized kind) and sauté the pasta in the sauce in right in the pan to finish. Or, serve over tortellini, gnocchi, or fettuccine.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!