Many of us can opt for takeaways or ready meals during the week as cooking a homemade meal can be tiring after a long day, but it can be easy as long as you have the right recipe.

Julia Frey, recipe developer and founder of Vikalinka, has shared she has an incredibly tasty and creamy pasta dish that only takes 15 minutes to cook from scratch.

She said: “Anyone looking for a simple recipe to pull out when time to make dinner is running short is in for a treat!

“This recipe for pasta cream sauce is as easy as it comes, yet it’s silky smooth and full of lovely flavour.”

What is amazing about this pasta is that it only requires three ingredients you only need fresh yet simple ingredients to make authentic Italian food rather than having to follow complicated recipes.

Julia explained: “Quality ingredients. That has always been the secret behind Italian cuisine. They use quality, fresh ingredients that bring lots of flavour with a minimum of fuss.

“This is the reason why so many Italian recipes are deceptively simple, with a limited list of ingredients, yet add up to remarkably tasty food. Using better ingredients means that you need less of them for great results.”

How to make a creamy pasta sauce

Ingredients

• 500ml of double cream (at least 36 percent fat)
• 50g of parmesan cheese (freshly grated)
• Salt (to taste)

A creamy Italian sauce, sometimes called alfredo sauce or a carbonara sauce, is often made with more ingredients in Britain but this is not needed for an Italian recipe. However, once you have mastered this basic dish then you can customise it however you please.

Julia said: “Garlic, chicken stock, flour, milk. None of them are really needed to make a full flavour cream sauce for any types of pasta.”

She added: “You will notice this recipe has no flour or starch to thicken the sauce. It is not necessary if you use heavy or double cream.”

Method 

To begin, pour the cream into a pan on a low heat, but do not let it begin to boil.

Once it is hot take it off the heat and slowly stir in the grated Parmesan cheese until it has fully melted and you have a smooth sauce.

Give the sauce a taste and add salt. Make sure not to skip adding the salt as it is a important ingredient in this dish.

After you have cooked your pasta, add it directly into the pan with the cream sauce and gently shake the pan to coat the pasta.

Add some reserved pasta water to the cream sauce to add more flavour to the dish, then serve it immediately.

Julia said: “Even though you made enough sauce to serve with your pasta, the minute you combine the two a portion of the sauce gets absorbed, and all of a sudden you’ve got dry pasta but what we want is saucy!

“Here is when your reserved starchy water comes to the rescue and turns your pasta into something silky smooth and lovely.”