Read our review of Sfoglini amazing Sriracha Fusilli and then make an easy to make pasta dish with a homemade basil alfredo sauce.
This sauce is a copycat sauce to the Private Selection sauce available at Kroger.
I was given a box of Sfoglini Sriracha Fusilli pasta for my review. The opinions in this post are solely my own.
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Great food is about balancing flavors.
One of my favorite balancing acts is warm and cool. By that I mean the wonderful combination of spicy foods with cool refreshing dairy - whether that dairy be cream, butter, yogurt, or milk. It's all good.
Look at Indian food for example. They eat a lot of spicy food. They are known for their Lassi yogurt drinks that go perfectly with a spicy meal.
My first venture into playing around with this combo is when I made Creamed Corn with Hatch Chile Peppers. You get hit the heat at first, but then the cream mellows it out. It's a perfect marriage. Why do you think people who eat a really hot pepper and need some relief turn to a cold glass of milk?
For my new adventure into hot and cool, I am combining a spicy Sriracha pasta with a cooling Alfredo sauce. It's such a wonderful flavor combination.
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🍝 Sfoglini Pasta
My friends at Sfoglini Pasta were ever so kind to send me three different boxes of pasta to try out. I will be posting recipes featuring all three of these. One of the varieties was Sriracha Fusilli. Sfoglini has a huge selection of varieties they make in different pasta shapes, colors, flavors, etc. They even do seasonal flavors like Chestnut, Basil, and Cocoa.
💡 Pasta Buying Tip - Sfoglini pasta is made with bronze dies. This gives the pasta a rough texture that will help your sauce adhere to it better. Look for the words "made with bronze dies" on any box of pasta you are looking to purchase.
❓ What is Fusilli Pasta?
Fusilli is a corkscrew shaped pasta. Sometimes in the U.S. people will call it rotini. But the Italian call it Fusilli so I am going to go with them, they are the pasta experts.
Fusilli is often used to make different colored pasta. This is usually done by adding things like beet, spinach, or tomato. In the case of the pasta I am talking about today it is given it's pretty orange color from the Sriracha that is added.
🐈 Kroger Copycat
The Sfoglini Pasta is something special I have never had before. I needed to ome up with a good idea to use. The first step was to cooked up a little bit of it to give a try - to see if it really packed the flavor and spice.
I can attest that this Sriracha pasta stuff is legit. It doesn't just say Sriracha on the box. There was some definite heat to it. Not crazy, but I haven't ever had a spicy pasta before. It left an (good) impression on me.
While wandering the aisles of my closest Kroger store I saw a a jar of sauce that caught my eye. Kroger has a store brand called Private Selection. And I must say that do have some cool products with great flavors. I am a sucker for their Sea Salt Caramel Ice Cream.
The jar of sauce that got my attention was a Basil Pesto Alfredo Sauce. That immediately got me thinking, I needed a homemade alfredo sauce to go on my Sriracha Fusilli. And why not some basil as well.
Our recipe does not have the modified egg yolk or xanthum gum that the Private Selection has. Instead we are using a roux to make our sauce.
🛒 Ingredients
Here are the ingredients you will need to make this recipe.
- Sfoglini Sriracha Fusilli
- Whole milk
- Parmesan chees
- All-purpose flour
- Butter
- Fresh basil
- Kosher salt
- Freshly grated nutmeg
The pasta by itself is so good that you don't need a super complex sauce to enjoy it. The Basil Alfredo sauce is a simple, yet delicious combination of flour, butter, milk, and cheese topped off with some fresh basil and salted to taste.
My little secret ingredient is including a little bit of freshly grated nutmeg. Most people seem to just use nutmeg for sweet desserts or egg nog, but nutmeg plays really well in savory dishes - so keep a nut on hand to grate.
If you want you can add some fresh black pepper as well. However I like to use white pepper for a white sauce so that it doesn't look like a bunch of black specks in the sauce. It's an optional ingredient in this recipe as I think you get plenty of spice from the pasta itself. But I won't ever tell you not to use fresh pepper!
If you want to add garlic powder or onion powder (both are in the Private Selection sauce), I would do it to taste when the sauce is all done. Add a ¼ tsp at a time and taste.
♻️ Substitutions
Can you replace the butter with olive oil instead? Absolutely. Read all about how to.
If you want to up the richness of this dish you can use heavy cream instead of milk. Or use a combo of milk and heavy cream, which would just be half and half, so you could just use that. I haven't tested this recipe with cream, so I don't know if the sauce then would be too thick. You could always add just a bit of water in the end if you find it's too thick for your liking.
I prefer to use flour to thicken my sauce, but if you want to go gluten free, you can use a certified gluten free corn starch instead. Replace it one for one.
If you can't find our pasta or want to use something else, the sauce is great on bow ties, fettuccine of course, and even zucchini noodles.
👨🏽🌾 Grow Your Own Basil
We also use basil that is fresh from the garden (the store would work too).
You need to grow your own basil. I grow basil in my garden. I planted it as soon as possible each year, which means when there is little to no chance of getting frost again here in Michigan.
Growing your own herbs is a great way to save money. At the grocery store you are going to pay an arm and a leg to get fresh herbs. I once calculated the per pound price of fresh herbs at Whole Foods Market. The price came out to be over $50 per pound. That is insane. A small container usually goes for $2-3 a piece. For that price you can buy a basil plant or two (I got 4 of them for $1.99 this year) and have all the basil you want fresh at your fingertips.
🛍️ Where to Buy Sfoglini
If you are interested in getting Sfoglini Pasta Sriracha Fusilli yourself, you can find it online or in these stores.
➕ More Pasta Dishes
After you make this pasta dish here are some others to try out.
- Pasta with Seaweed and Asparagus Pesto
- Pumpkin Pasta Sauce
- Pumpkin Spaghetti Sauce
- Leftover Turkey Orzo Soup
- Best Ingredients for Cacio e Pepe
- Arugula & Spinach Pesto for Pasta
- Mac & Cheese Without an Oven
- Linguine with Fresh Cherry Tomatoes and Cream
- Single Serving Chicken Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 16 ounces Sfoglini Sriracha Fusilli
- 1 cup whole milk
- 4 ounces Parmesan and/or Romano cheeses
- 1 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons butter
- ¼ cup fresh basil chopped
- kosher salt to taste
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg freshly greated, optional
Instructions
- Bring a gallon of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta. Cook til al dente, drain, and set aside.
- Melt the butter in the bottom of a large sauce pan over medium heat.
- Add the flour. Stir until combined and the flour is cooked, less than a minute.
- Add the milk. Bring to a boil, stirring consistently.
- Remove from the heat, and add the cheese and chopped up basil. Salt to taste.
- Serve over the pasta or mix it all together to combine. Add freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
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