The Cheap Protein You Need To Make Fettuccine Alfredo Last Longer

"Save me, pasta night," home cooks plea as they collapse into the sofa, rumbly-bellied and beat on a weeknight. When the day's tasks end right as dinner time rolls around, foodies are often looking to the satisfying, warming, budget-friendly beauty of pasta — and ground beef is an affordable protein that can help stretch a meal a little farther. "Beefing" up your go-to fettuccine Alfredo is as simple as one extra step: Browning ground beef in a skillet and then stirring it in. (Step aside, chicken fettuccine Alfredo.)

To do it, sautee the ground beef in a large skillet over medium heat to brown. If you have one, this is a prime opportunity to bust out the cast-iron skillet, which will give that ground beef a flame-grilled taste. You could also toss in some diced onion or shallot at this step for extra savory dimensionality, but take care not to overcrowd the skillet while browning the meat. Meanwhile, as the meat is browning, boil a pot of salted water and add in your fettuccine, cooking to al dente and then draining. To combine, simply spoon your Alfredo sauce over the pasta, add in the drained, cooked ground beef, and stir, warming a few minutes more to heat through. 

Homemade Alfredo sauce or store-bought both work just as well for this meaty pasta. Giovanni Rana is our favorite brand of jarred Alfredo sauce, for the record, and we have a few tips for making store-bought Alfredo sauce taste homemade.

At a Target in New York, one pound of 85% lean ground beef ($6.99), one pound of fettuccine ($0.99), and a 15-ounce jar of Alfredo sauce ($2.39) come together for a $10.37 meal that can be ready in less than 20 minutes. Considering the average entree-sized portion is 100 grams of dried pasta per person, that shakes out to four to five servings at roughly $2.50 a plate. It's hearty and hardy; and leftovers hold up in the fridge and perform well when reheated.

Traditional Alfredo sauce is made with parmesan cheese, but if you're going the homemade route, you could experiment with other flavorful cheeses to give your beef-loaded pasta a savory flair. Shaved smoked gouda, sharp white cheddar, or nutty fontina would all be deliciously unexpected here, and all texturally melt well into a smooth, creamy sauce. To build more layers of flavor, you could whip up an umami-rich garlic Alfredo, or pick up the jarred Garlic & Caramelized Onion Alfredo by Prego.

Feel free to zhuzh it up with your favorite seasonings, too. Simply Organic Italian Seasoning would lend extra herbaceous depth stirred into the sauteing ground beef. If you're feeling fancy, you could garnish it with fresh sage leaves. To complete the meal, serve your ground beef fettuccine Alfredo with a side of simple sauteed broccoli and pair it with a glass of complementary wine. We recommend fruity, savory Beaujolais for red or flinty Chablis for white.