A Month-of-Mediterranean: Cacio e Pepe

I needed to use more light here. Sorry. Cheese and pepper pasta? Yep. A classic Italian dish. How the heck do you pronounce it? Sorta like this: cah-cho a pa-pa. You can go to this YouTube video to hear it, too.

The name of the dish gives a big clue to the ingredients: cacio e pepe is cheese and pepper. Five ingredients are all you need and you probably have them already in your kitchen: Pecorino Romano cheese, garlic, black pepper, butter, and spaghetti. How easy is that for a weeknight meal?

There are tons of cacio e pepe recipes out there. Chrissy Tiegen brought a new level of awareness to this dish with her version of cacio e pepe with lemon and arugula. Those ingredients would help with the heaviness for sure.

If you don’t like my version, try another. But, I’ll tell you, they vary little from one another. Maybe a different cheese. Maybe butter instead of olive oil. Or no added fat at all. Maybe greens, maybe not. But the basics are the same: cheese and pepper tossed with pasta. Yum! Serve with a big salad so you put less pasta on your plate.

Cacio e Pepe (serves 2-3)

8 ounces pasta (spaghetti, linguine, bucatini)

3 tablespoons butter

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon fresh-ground pepper

1 1/3 cups grated Pecorino Romano cheese

 

Cook pasta in a large skillet with enough water to cover the pasta, no more. This will create the extra-starchy water you’ll need in the sauce. Heavily salt the water before adding pasta to boiling water. [see DH's Rating below]

Cook pasta to almost al dente. You want it firm.

While pasta is cooking, melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add pepper and garlic and cook for one minute.

Carefully put ½ cup boiling pasta water in the melted butter. It will bubble up, so be careful. When the bubbling settles, whisk to combine.

Remove butter mixture from heat and let rest for three minutes. Add cheese slowly, whisking as you do so. Remove from heat to keep from clumping.

When the pasta is done, drain, reserving ½ cup pasta water. Let rest for 2-3 minutes.

Let drained pasta rest for a couple of minutes to cool down. Then add half the pasta to the butter mixture skillet. Toss to combine. Then add remaining pasta and toss to completely combine.

If the pasta is too dry, add as much of the pasta water as you need until you get a saucy texture. Serve immediately with extra cheese and pepper.

NOTE: You will get a clumpy sauce, not a smooth one, if you don’t freshly grate as fine as possible your own parmesan cheese (NO green can!). It will also clump if you have pots too hot or don’t wait for the food to rest before combining.

DH’s Rating: 3 Tongues Up

“Too salty.” Point well taken. It was saltier than we are used to since we cut way back on salt years ago. The other issue he had was with the texture. He’s not a gloopy sauce Mac&Cheese guy, so the sauce of this dish was not a favorite either. All in all, he said, “You’re not making this again, are you?” Nope, I won’t. Or maybe I will for me when he’s gone on one of his trips. I like gloopy sauces, and I will cut back on the salt in the water.