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Creamy Asiago Cheese Tortellini - tortellini smothered in a creamy Asiago cheese sauce. Easy and quick - the whole recipe takes only 30 minutes from start to finish!
A perfect and easy pasta dish - easy enough to make on a regular weeknight, but it tastes like pasta from a fancy Italian restaurant. Asiago cheese is very flavorful and perfect for cheese tortellini. And, garlic makes everything better!
Best Tortellini to use
I like to use (and highly recommend) the refrigerated kind of tortellini. For this recipe, I bought a 20 oz bag of tortellini and used ½ of the bag - which equaled to 2 and ½ cups of uncooked tortellini.
Cooking Tips
- How to reheat leftovers. While any creamy cheese-based sauce is best served immediately after making it, you can easily reheat leftover cheese tortellini with Asiago cream sauce by adding a small amount of milk as you reheat the sauce on the stove top.
- How to fix lumpy sauce. If the cheese in the sauce lumps - increase the heat and keep stirring at all times, until the lumps melt.
- If sauce gets too thick, add more broth to thin it out.
How to cook cheese tortellini
- Cook cheese tortellini according to package instructions.
- Rinse with cold water.
- Drain.
- Make sauce of your choice to go with tortellini, such as creamy Asiago cheese sauce.
How to make cheese tortellini sauce
- Heat olive oil and butter on medium heat in a large skillet.
- Add minced garlic and cook for about 1 minute on medium heat, stirring, without burning.
- Add vegetarian broth and heavy cream to the skillet with cooked garlic.
- Bring to boil, stirring.
- Once the liquids are boiling, immediately add cheese, reduce heat to medium simmer, and keep stirring everything together, on medium simmer, until cheese melts - about 1 minute.
- Reduce heat to very low simmer.
- Season with salt.
- If sauce gets too thick, add more broth to thin it out.
Creamy Asiago Cheese Tortellini
Ingredients
- 10 oz tortellini (refrigerated kind - half of 20 oz bag)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- ½ tablespoon butter
- 5 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 cup heavy cream
- ½ cup vegetarian no-chicken broth or chicken broth
- 1 cup Asiago cheese shredded
- ¼ teaspoon salt approximately, to taste
- fresh parsley chopped
Instructions
- Cook tortellini according to package instructions, rinse with cold water and drain.
- Heat olive oil and butter on medium heat in a large skillet, add minced garlic and cook for about 1 minute on medium heat, stirring, without burning.
- Add vegetarian broth and heavy cream to the skillet with cooked garlic. Bring to boil, stirring.
- Once the liquids are boiling, immediately add cheese, reduce heat to medium simmer, and keep stirring everything together, on medium simmer, until cheese melts - about 1 minute. Note: If the cheese lumps - increase heat and keep stirring at all times, until it melts.
- Reduce to very low simmer, add salt. I usually add ⅛ teaspoon of salt, taste the sauce, and then add another ⅛ teaspoon of salt if needed. (Do not add all of ¼ teaspoon of salt right away - taste first).
- If sauce is too thick, add more broth to thin it out.
- Add cooked tortellini, and continue to cook, constantly stirring, to thicken the sauce - for another minute.
- To serve, top each serving with finely chopped fresh parsley
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
I just made this tonight and all I can say is OMG! It is absolutely delicious!!! Very easy to make and the cheese sauce came out perfect. No issues with clumps. I will never buy jar alfredo sauce again lol After it was done I chopped up some broccoli florets (which I partially cooked in the microwave) and added them. There was plenty of cheese sauce to coat everything.
Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe! I will be making it often.
Thank you, Lisa, great to hear that you liked this recipe! Broccoli is always such a great addition to creamy sauce + pasta!
I made this last week...came out so good that I am making it tonight except I'm using gnocchi.
Thank you, Kate, I am glad you enjoyed it! Gnocchi in a creamy sauce sounds delicious!
Made this and it was soo good... I am now going to try using gnocchi... Can't wait!
Thank you!
Delicious choice!
This recipe is quite yummy! The only thing I suggest, is to use 2 jars of Alfredo sauce. In my opinion, using one jar, it came out too dry and really needed a second jar. Thankfully I was able to fix this pretty quickly, because I had everything on hand to make my own Alfredo sauce. Also, I opted for the chicken broth over the vegetarian broth just because that's what I usually have on hand. Perfect weeknight “Meatless Monday” meal, completed with a tossed salad using baby spinach in place of lettuce.
Same issue here. Too much liquid resulting in a taste soup but alas, no creamy cheese sauce as was expected. Never saw a response to the inquiries above so I'm not expecting one now. I did find a similar recipe for the same dish with very different cooking directions that I will try next time. Good reminder lesson to read the comments before cooking. Time to delete this recipe!
My sauce was not thickening either! I used shredded Asiago instead or grated and it melted perfectly but after I added the tortellini and let it simmer for a while it would not thicken! I ended up adding the rest of the cheese I had (5oz total -1 3/4cups) hoping that would help but it still was very soupy. I threw in about a tablespoon of flour and that did the trick! I let it simmer a few more minutes stirring occasionally then let it set another couple minutes. So yummy!! Next time I'll try adding the flour when I add the cream and broth and see if that works even better!
Thank you for the feedback! Did you use heavy cream or lighter cream? With 1 cup of heavy cream + 1 cup broth + 1 cup grated cheese, the sauce should thicken just right. Looks like you found a great solution and everything worked!
Mine was a soupy mess and the cheese stuck to the bottom of the pa . If anyone has any ideas on how to thicken the sauce would be greatly appreciated.
Did you bring the heavy cream + broth to boil before adding cheese? And kept stirring the cheese in the sauce until it is nicely melted, so that it didn't stick to the bottom of the pan?
I had the same issue as the last two comments - cheese melted, but never thickened, and instead became clumps of asiago in a thin sauce. Any suggestions on getting it to combine and meld?
Christine, did you bring the heavy cream + broth to boil before adding cheese, then reduce heat to low-medium simmer? The cheese might clump if the liquids are not hot enough to begin with. And once the cheese is in the sauce, keep stirring, while it simmers until it is nicely melted.
Can you answer the above questions about the creaminess of the cheese? Because I have the same question, why is the Asiago cheese not really combining with the cream/broth liquid, it's just lumpy cheese with a liquid froth.. I was a cheesy creamy substance!
Erica,
I think the problem might be that the cream/broth liquid was not hot enough for cheese to combine properly. Make sure to bring the heavy cream + broth to boil before adding cheese, then immediately reduce heat to low-medium simmer. Keep stirring the sauce, once the cheese is in the sauce, until it is nicely melted.
My kids totally loved this, my son even said "your the best cook ever", which was great coming from my picky preschooler. We had the same issues with the sauce not thickening but based on the pix above the sauce seems pretty thin. However, I would like to know how to better get the cheese to blend, because I ended up with melted cheese clumps too.
Hi Danielle,
Make sure to bring the heavy cream + broth mixture to boil before adding the cheese. After adding the cheese, reduce heat to low-medium simmer, and keep stirring the sauce, all the time, until it melts. If it's clumpy, increase the heat and keep stirring. I think the reason the cheese is not melting is because the pan and the liquids are not heated enough. Hope this helps for your next try. 🙂
all Asiago chesse is not the same. some won't incorporate into a sauce no matter what you do, others will will do just fine. boars head is a good melting style of Asiago. I know this from experience.
Probably true. I haven't tried all types of Asiago cheese - I am sure some are drier than others. I do know from my experience, that it's really important to make sure the cream/broth liquid is hot enough before adding the cheese. Also, it's an important step to cook minced garlic in olive oil and butter for 1 minute before even adding the cream and the broth - it adds fats to the mixture and also helps heat the cooking pan even more.
Yes, cheese and temperature definitely matter and we have since perfected both since my first comment. We like the costco lake country Asiago and we finely shred it to make it easier to melt. It’s still my preschoolers favorite meal
I had the same problem as a couple of others here- my sauce never came together. The cheese melted and stuck to the bottom of the skillet and never melded with the cream & broth mixture. Tasted good, looked like hell. Also, my Asiago was plenty salty, even for a salt fiend like myself, so no added salt was needed.
Mine too did not thicken. It was just liquid. Any suggestions? I followed the recipe.
I hard trouble with the sauce getting thick, too. I let the whole thing simmer for a while longer. Next time I would reduce the cream and broth more before adding the cheese, and then reduce it even further before adding the tortellini . I did add a little more cheese, just to use it up. I thought it tasted really good.
I too had an issue with my sauce not thickening. I should have known better, you always need a roux when making a cream sauce but I thought what the heck I'll follow the recipe and i ended up having to add some corn starch to my sauce to thicken it. Y'all always need roux when making a cream sauce. To the butter and garlic and olive oil I would add a tiny bit of flour like a 1/2 a teaspoon or such.
You can certainly make a roux for a cream sauce. However, I always just heat the skillet, add butter, olive oil, and garlic, cook then a little bit, then add liquids to the hot skillet, bring everything to boil and add shredded cheese to the simmering liquids, stirring until the cheese melts. It always works for me.
The flavor of this was great. My only problem was that my asiago cheese melted, but it didn't meld with the cream and broth to become a creamy sauce. It just had a bunch of melted cheese in the liquid. It was still great, but I don't think that is what it was supposed to be like, correct? I did double the recipe and followed the directions exactly, but for whatever reason the sauce didn't come out right. That said, the fam still really liked it and I will definitely give it a go again another time.
This is also the dumplings? Good special, I've eaten Nepal and Chinese dumplings, but nothing like this shape.
mmm this pasta is total creamy flavorful perfection!
Thank you! 🙂