I decided to make fettuccini with proscuitto in a cream-based sauce for my boyfriend. I looked up a recipe. It read fine and sounded heavenly, but when I tried making it, the final dish looked so unappealing to me. The cream looked lifeless and runny, even with the parmesan cheese added to thicken it. The butter that I had melted to make the cream sauce gave the whole sauce a slightly yellow tinge. My boyfriend said that it tasted OK but I was so disappointed.

So my point is: can someone tell me... or even better, have a Rouxbe video on making cream-based pasta sauces. My boyfriend does not like tomato-based sauces and cream-based sauces give me depression. All I am left with is oil-based sauces (which I love) and flavoured butter sauces for ravioli. Can one of you awesome chefs help me?

Make sure you are using heavy cream (minimum 33% milk fat) and reduce the cream until you reach the desired consistency. Aromatics can be sweated before adding the cream and reducing - or, they can be added afterwards (see the example in Step 2 of Orecchiette with Pesto-Cream Sauce). Hope this helps!

You people at ROuxbe are life savers! I am currently doing a "6 nights of chicken breasts" for my food blog at the request of my classmates. But I will definitely try another cream-based pasta next week.

Thank you Dawn.