That sounds really good. I’m not a big fan of butter but I do love olive oil. Do you think that could be substituted when added to the cream?
My family loves the flavor of olive oil as well and prefers its flavor to that of butter in many of my creamy pasta sauces. I have found that in many of my pasta recipes I can use olive oil or even cooking oil instead of butter. Most of the time I can substitute one tablespoon of olive oil for every 2 tablespoons of butter in my recipes, with the one exception being when I make a roux. A roux works best with about equal parts of fat and flour.
I also use bacon fat a lot instead of oil or butter, since my family loves the flavor of bacon even more than olive oil.
With the cost of everything going up at the grocery store, it is not a bad idea to save the fat from everything you cook to use as a substitute for butter or oil in your cooking. When doing so, however, I find it is best to keep the fat refrigerated and in small jars labeled well with the date and the type of fat you have saved. I can then rotate them easily, using the oldest ones first. You can save a lot of money in your food budget that would otherwise be spent on butter, oil, margarine, etc. by doing so.
Drippings from just about anything you cook can also be a great way to stretch food dollars if you are not using them for gravy that night. Simply let them cool slightly, put into a container, and refrigerate overnight. The fat rises to the top and solidifies, so you can just skim the fat off of the drippings. I then have fat to use for cooking and wonderful low fat drippings to use for gravies, soups, etc.
I don't think it would work. I've never tried it, BUT, the high fat content of the butter/cream is what keeps the sauce from breaking as long as the heat is not too high.
I like olive oil as well, but do not think it would work or be a particularly good flavor profile for this application.
I have added some cheddar, gouda, and other types of cheese in small amounts to this type of mac & cheese...but even doing that if not watched very carefully will break the sauce.
But then, I consider butter one of the four major food groups...so what do I know...LOL?