Cacio e Pepe: The Perfect 20-Minute Meal

This is one of those great a la minute dishes that you can whip together last minute, and you might have the ingredients in your fridge. All you need is pasta, pecorino romano cheese, butter, and pepper. To make this dish more kid-friendly, I use pink peppercorns not black peppercorns to reduce the spice, I also add parmigiano reggiano cheese to make it a bit milder.

Cacio e Pepe

• 1 lb dried pasta

• 1.5 c. grated pecorino romano cheese

• 1 c. grated parmigiano reggiano cheese

• 5 tbsp. high quality butter

• 1 heavy drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

• Reserve 2 c. pasta water

• 2 tsp. fresh cracked pink peppercorns, or to taste

The directions to this dish are so simple! Boil your pasta, I used Isola Imports Spaghetti, which is double the length of a regular spaghetti noodle and has great tooth. While your pasta is boiling, grate up the cheese or have your kids do it like me! Towards the end of the boiling scoop out 2 cups of that super starchy pasta water.

When your pasta is cooked and drained, add it back to the pot with the butter and a heavy drizzle of olive oil with the flame on low. Add the cheese and as it starts to melt, slowly add back pasta water until the sauce is at your desired consistency. I used nearly a cup and a half of the water. Then get cracking with the pink peppercorns, I recommend nearly 2 teaspoons which is about 1 minute of cracking, but this is certainly something you can do to taste.