This Creamy Leek Sauce with Pancetta adds excellent flavor to pasta dishes or can be used as a topping for some chicken or steak.
What’s better than a plate of gnocchi topped with a flavorful, creamy sauce? Not much. One way that I like using this sauce is over a bowl of cauliflower gnocchi and sauteed mushrooms. But, I bet this would also be delicious drizzled over some chicken or a steak.
The inspiration for this sauce came from a local person who is making and selling wood fired pizzas. Each week, he creates a new menu and we’ve gone almost every weekend (unless the time slots are sold out). They are amazing pizzas, and if you live on the Central Coast you should definitely try some! Let me know if you do live on the Central Coast, and I can send you his way 🙂 One of the pizzas that we ordered a few weeks ago had a creamy leek sauce and it was so good! But really, you can’t go wrong with ordering any of his pizzas.
I knew I had to add pancetta to this recipe after making the sauce in this baked ziti recipe. That sauce also uses pancetta, and it adds such an awesome touch to the sauce!
Creamy Leek Sauce with Pancetta
This simple, creamy leek sauce with pancetta works well over pasta, steak, or gnocchi.
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon oil
- 4 oz. pancetta
- 1 leek, thinly sliced and washed
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/3 cup chicken broth
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
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Heat the oil over medium heat in a saucepan. Once the oil is heated, add the pancetta and cook, stirring occasionally, until the pancetta is browned. Remove the pancetta from the saucepan with a slotted spoon and set aside, leaving any oil remaining in the pan.
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Add the leeks to the remaining oil in the saucepan. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until softened. Add the 2 cloves of garlic and cook for 1-2 more minutes. If the oil from the pancetta has been soaked up, you may need to add an additional drop of two of oil to prevent the garlic from burning.
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Add the chicken broth and heavy cream. Cook for two minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and use an immersion blender to blend the sauce into a creamy mixture. Alternatively, you can pour the sauce into a blender (but be careful because the heat of the sauce will make it expand in the blender). Once creamy and smooth, return the sauce to the pan and bring the sauce to a boil. Reduce the heat and let the sauce simmer for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Once ten minutes have passed, add the Parmesan cheese in a slow stream, stirring constantly to avoid clumping. Once the cheese has melted and the sauce returns to a smooth and creamy texture, remove from the heat and add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy over gnocchi, other pasta, or a protein (steak and chicken would be tasty covered in this sauce!).