• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • About Us
    • FAQ
    • Meet the Team
  • Contact us
  • Guest Content
TLE ONLINE SHOP!
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
NEWSLETTER
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home Food and Drink Recipes

How To Make: Cacio e Pepe

A Roman classic, using just three main ingredients.

Jon Hatchman by Jon Hatchman
2021-08-31 14:43
in Recipes
Cacio e Pepe recipe spaghetti pasta | Photo: Stijn Nieuwendijk / Flickr

Photo: Stijn Nieuwendijk / Flickr

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmailWhatsapp

Literally meaning “cheese and pepper” in several dialects, cacio e pepe is a classic Italian dish specifically associated with Rome. A pillar of modern Roman cuisine, the dish’s excellence lies within its relative simplicity, using just a few ingredients and taking minimal time to prepare and cook. The dish predominantly features cracked black pepper, Pecorino Romano cheese, and pasta such as traditional tonnarelli or spaghetti, yet the result is far greater than the sum of its basic parts, with the creamy sauce accounting for much of the its popularity.

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

Thought to have been created hundreds of years ago, cacio e pepe originates from the basics of ‘la cucina povera’ (the poor cuisine), along with plenty of additional Roman recipes. For these dishes, ingredients were kept, hunted, or grown by the consumers with no parts ever wasted. Born from a lack of eggs to make carbonara (another Roman classic), cacio e pepe was particularly popular amongst Roman shepherds without fixed abode, thanks to all of the ingredients keeping well for a long time.

While some recipes call for butter, cream, or other embellishments such as bacon or seafood, they’re not traditionally used. Instead, a typical cacio e pepe recipe will exemplify the complexity of pan sauce precision, featuring just dried pasta, finely grated Pecorino Romano, freshly cracked black pepper, and a good splash of the pasta’s cooking water to melt the cheese and the starches, ultimately producing a creamy sauce.

Although the dish is fairly simple to make at home, the following tips will prevent the sauce from being clumpy, and will generally help to upgrade your cacio e pepe.

Cooking tips

  • Using toasted pepper brings even more flavour to cacio e pepe.
  • It’s advisable to grate the cheese as finely as possible to help it incorporate more smoothly, ultimately helping to prevent the cheese from clumping.
  • Importantly, make sure the pan isn’t too hot when adding the cheese, otherwise the cheese proteins will clump and form a film on the bottom of the pan.
  • Pecorino Romano is traditional, but Parmigiano Reggiano can be used at a push, if absolutely necessary. Made with sheep’s milk, Pecorino Romano is far sharper, saltier, and more pungent than parmesan.  
  • Cook the pasta in as little water as possible – this will make it particularly starchy, which is necessary for producing a perfectly creamy sauce.
  • With the ingredients lasting for a long time, it’s worth buying more Pecorino Romano than you’ll need for this cacio e pepe recipe as the dish is a perfect store cupboard recipe: quick to cook, using just a few ingredients.

Cacio e pepe recipe

Cacio e Pepe recipe spaghetti pasta | Photo: Stijn Nieuwendijk / Flickr

Cacio e Pepe

A Roman classic made with just three key ingredients
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
Course: Appetizer, Main Course, Starter
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: Cacio e Pepe, Cheese, Pasta, Spaghetti
Servings: 2
Author: Jon Hatchman

Ingredients

  • 200 g dried pasta such as tonnarelli or spaghetti
  • 2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 150 g Pecorino Romano
  • Salt to taste

Instructions

  • Add the cracked pepper to a pan large enough for the cooked pasta and toast for a minute or two over low heat, until fragrant. Set aside and allow to cool while the pasta cooks.
  • In a separate pan, cook the pasta in a minimal amount of generously salted water for 2 minutes fewer than the packet instructions, then use tongs to drain the pasta into the pan with the toasted pepper. Reserve the pasta cooking water.
  • Cook over low heat and add most of the finely grated Pecorino Romano to the pan. Allow the cheese to melt for 30 seconds or so, without mixing, then stir vigorously. Add a ladleful of pasta cooking water to the pan and continue to stir until the cheese melts and becomes emulsified. Add more of the pasta cooking water if necessary to loosen the sauce.
  • Plate and finish with the rest of the Pecorino Romano and a crack of black pepper. Eat immediately.

Notes

  • Using toasted pepper brings even more flavour to cacio e pepe.
  • It’s advisable to grate the cheese as finely as possible to help it incorporate more smoothly, ultimately helping to prevent the cheese from clumping.
  • Importantly, make sure the pan isn’t too hot when adding the cheese, otherwise the cheese proteins will clump and form a film on the bottom of the pan.
  • Pecorino Romano is traditional, but Parmigiano Reggiano can be used at a push, if absolutely necessary. Made with sheep’s milk, Pecorino Romano is far sharper, saltier, and more pungent than parmesan.
  • Cook the pasta in as little water as possible – this will make it particularly starchy, which is necessary for producing a perfectly creamy sauce.
  • With the ingredients lasting for a long time, it’s worth buying more Pecorino Romano than you’ll need for this cacio e pepe recipe as the dish is a perfect store cupboard recipe: quick to cook, using just a few ingredients.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

RELATED: How To Make: Spaghetti Alla Nerano

Content Protection by DMCA.com

RelatedPosts

How To Make: Tiramisu

How To Make: Club Sandwich

How To Make: Chicken Tinga

How To Make: Gazpacho

Tags: Food Recipes

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

Trending on TLE

  • All
  • trending

Elevenses: Exposing the Tories’ Deepfake Illegal Immigration Bill

Elevenses: Rishi’s Finest Hour

Elevenses: Fear and Loathing in the New Conservatives

More from TLE

Elevenses: A Long Overdue Obituary

HgCapital invests in business messaging service, Esendex

Weather forecast, alerts and UVB index for London, Thursday 28 January 2021

UK politicians warned of ‘armed insurrection’ after Trump ‘incites’ Capitol building riots

Extinction Rebellion protester has been banned from Oxford Circus

Jay Rayner’s ‘My Last Supper’, out to lunch with Britain’s boldest restaurant critic

NHS: Staff in ‘vicious circle’ of staff shortages and exhaustion as service at ‘crisis point’

No question of lights going out…but food supplies could be hit by CO2 shortage in days

NBA – The Eastern Conference

Immature teenage girls told packed Tube one of them had a bomb

JOBS

FIND MORE JOBS

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

Contact

Editorial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Commercial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Address

The London Economic Newspaper Limited t/a TLE
Company number 09221879
International House,
24 Holborn Viaduct,
London EC1A 2BN,
United Kingdom

SUPPORT

We do not charge or put articles behind a paywall. If you can, please show your appreciation for our free content by donating whatever you think is fair to help keep TLE growing and support real, independent, investigative journalism.

DONATE & SUPPORT

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Travel
  • JOBS
  • More…
    • Elevenses
    • Opinion
    • Property
    • Tech & Auto
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact us

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.