Italian

Cacio e Pepe

Name: Cacio e Pepe
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1 lb spaghetti; 1.5 cups grated pecorino romano; 1/2 cup grated parmesan; 1 tbsp black pepper; 1/2 tsp salt

Lucia @nonna_lucia

Cacio e Pepe is Italian home cooking, eaten at lunch and dinner. On the plate it is the dish at the centre. Below is what usually sits beside it, what it does and does not contain, and what else to cook once you have made it.

20 min Easy Vegetarian Halal Pescatarian

Ingredients

Serves

The quantities follow this count.

1 lb spaghetti
1.5 cups grated pecorino romano
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 tbsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt

How to cook it

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the spaghetti until al dente, using less water than usual so it turns starchy.
Toast the coarsely ground black pepper in a dry skillet over medium heat until fragrant, about 1 minute.
Ladle a cup of the starchy pasta water into the skillet and let it cool slightly.
Whisk the pecorino and parmesan into the warm water off the heat to make a smooth paste.
Drain the spaghetti, reserving more water, and add it to the cheese sauce.
Toss vigorously over low heat, adding pasta water until the sauce is glossy and clings, then serve.

Watch how to cook Cacio e Pepe

Someone making it start to finish, so you can see what the steps look like.

Easy Cacio e Pepe Recipe Play the video

Serve it with

A Italian dinner is a plate rather than a single dish. These are the courses that normally sit beside Cacio e Pepe, read from the same composition Dinejot builds a real meal from.

The cooked vegetable
- Cicoria Ripassata (Sauteed Bitter Greens)
  
  20 min
Something cool and fresh
- Insalata Caprese (Caprese Salad)
  
  10 min

Safe at your table

Dinejot tracks ten allergens and tags every one of them by hand, so the absences below are as deliberate as the presences. Cacio e Pepe carries dairy and gluten. It is free of the remaining 8 allergens on that list.

Every tracked allergen in Cacio e Pepe
Allergen	In this dish	Cook this instead
Peanuts	No
Tree nuts	No
Dairy	Yes	Chicken Cacciatore
Gluten	Yes	Butternut Squash Risotto
Shellfish	No
Eggs	No
Soy	No
Fish	No
Sesame	No
Coconut	No

These tags are set by a person rather than inferred from an ingredient list, and they describe the recipe as written here. Read the labels on whatever you actually buy.

What it brings to the plate

Estimated, per serving

Calories: 600 kcal
Protein: 31 g
Carbs: 82 g
Fat: 16 g
Fiber: 3 g
Sugar: 2 g
Sodium: 650 mg
Saturated fat: 9 g

Estimated values. Actual nutrition varies with ingredients, brands, and how you cook.

When to cook it

Cacio e Pepe takes about 20 minutes from a cold stove to the table, and the cooking itself is easy going. It is eaten at lunch and dinner. Nothing in the calendar rules it out, so it is a year round dish.