Easiest Lemon Garlic Cream Sauce Recipe Ever

Lemon and spiderweb cropped | Kevin

I am absolutely obsessed with this recipe because it's tasty and it takes about 15 minutes. And because I HATE when food bloggers give you ten pages of quirky life story and giant ass pictures of every step in their recipes (no offense, food bloggers), that's all I'm going to say. Make sure you read my notes, though, so you don't make the same mistakes I did.

What you need: 
1 pint heavy cream
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1/2 - 1 tsp (or to taste) garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese

What you do:

Pour the heavy cream into a large sauce or sauté pan. Over medium heat, bring it to a simmer whisking occasionally to prevent scalding. Whisk in the lemon juice and zest and allow to thicken for a minute or two. Reduce heat to low and add garlic powder, salt, and pepper and whisk for 1 minute. Add the cheese and whisk until it melts. Toss with your favorite pasta.

Notes: 

• The very first mistake I made was not understanding how quick this sauce goes. It's really difficult for me to cook this while I'm cooking other things because you need to be constantly stirring and tasting, which makes it hard to check on other things. Your best bet is to prep everything you need for the sauce before you start, including the noodles. If you're making something to go with it, don't be afraid to make the sauce before you cook your other dishes, and add the pasta and reheat it when the rest of your food is ready. 
• Do not let the cream and lemon juice/zest cook too long, or the lemon will become sort of bitter and overpower the dish. 
• Add the garlic powder and S&P a little at a time, let it cook for a few seconds, and taste it before adding more. 
• You can use any noodles, but my personal favorite is angel hair. 
• I generally cook the angel hair before I start the sauce, then drain it and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. As soon as the parm is melted, I take the sauce off the heat. And then when I'm ready to combine the two, I put the sauce back on low to medium heat (depending on how much of a hurry I'm in) and add in the noodles a little at a time until I get the right noodle to sauce ratio. Whisk constantly until the pasta is hot so the sauce doesn't break. 
• DO NOT USE PRE-GRATED PARMESAN!!! I mean, as far as I'm concerned, you should never use pre-grated parmesan because not too long ago, there were claims that some of them have wood pulp in them. Snopes says people are confusing cellulose with wood pulp, so maybe it's not true, but a thing that is true is that most pre-grated/shredded cheeses have flour in them to keep the grains/shreds from sticking together. Depending on the recipe, this could cause your sauce to come out grainy or tasting of flour. Since there's no roux in this sauce, it might not be a problem, but I don't like to take chances like that with recipes I'm obsessed with. 
• I like to use a really large nonstick sauté pan for this sauce because it makes it easier to mix in the pasta.
• This recipe works really well as a side for grilled chicken or baked fish. Most of the time, I grill chicken on a Foreman Grill when I make this. 

I think that's it. I hope you love it as much as I do!