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 1/2 of the bag – which equaled to 2 and 1/2 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 - tortellini smothered in a creamy Asiago cheese sauce, the recipe takes only 30 minutes from start to finish! Delicious, meatless pasta recipe. Perfect as is, or as a side dish to grilled meats.
- 10 oz tortellini (refrigerated kind - half of 20 oz bag)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1/2 tablespoon butter
- 5 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup vegetarian no-chicken broth or chicken broth
- 1 cup Asiago cheese shredded
- 1/4 teaspoon salt approximately, to taste
- fresh parsley chopped
-
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 1/8 teaspoon of salt, taste the sauce, and then add another 1/8 teaspoon of salt if needed. (Do not add all of 1/4 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
Made this tonight and added sausage. It was so good! I will be trying it with chicken next.
Thank you, Alex! I am glad you liked it! Good to know that sausage tastes good in this recipe. 🙂
I made this today. I would recommend maybe only using 1/2 cup of the heavy cream to make it thicker. I slowly poured in the cheese while stirring and had no problems with clumping. Mine didn’t look as neat as the picture but still tasted good. I also added some shredded chicken.
Thank you, Sheena! I am glad you liked it! 🙂 Shredded chicken is a great addition to make it more of a complete meal for meat lovers!
Mix some cornstarch and broth to thicken it up works perfect! Yummy! Way better then any jar! Thank you
Thank you for the tip! Yes, cornstarch is always great for thickening the sauces, even though I prefer just to use cheese and half and half.
Does using heavy whipping cream vs heavy cream change the outcome?
thanks
Heavy whipping cream and heavy cream work the same in this kind of sauce.
For everyone having problems with the cheese I’ve figured out a method that works for me. I let the cream and broth to boil for a few minutes so that the whole pan is the same temp. Then I grated my cheese before I started cooking and I used the smallest holes to grate it so it was really paper thin strings. And I took 1/4 cup at a time and sprinkled it evenly across the pan. Then stirred it while still boiling and repeated the process until I got enough cheese and it went perfect! Hope this helps !
Great tips, Linnea! Thank you for taking your time to write such a detailed comment with tips on how to make the sauce! Yes, it’s very important to make sure both the pan and the liquids in the pan are really hot. It is also important to cook the minced garlic in butter and olive oil as the first step – that helps to heat the pan and it also adds fats to the sauce which will help with cheese melting nicely. 🙂
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!