Martha Stewart’s 3-Ingredient Cacio E Pepe Is The Ideal Weeknight Dinner

In Martha Stewart’s recipe, she explains that making excellent cacio e pepe comes down to melting the cheese into a luxurious sauce — and there are some key ways to do so. Adding the cheese to an overly hot pan will cause it to seize up and form unpleasant clumps rather than turning silky-smooth. Rather, the best way to avoid this is to turn off the heat and add the cheese last. Then you can shake the pan and vigorously stir everything until a creamy sauce is formed. 

In addition to this classic technique, Stewart offers some tweaks on the tried-and-true cacio e pepe formula. For one, she recommends adding both lemon zest and juice for a fresh pop of acidity. She also uses Grana Padano cheese along with Pecorino Romano. This aged cheese offers similarly nutty notes to parmesan, but its softer texture lets it melt more quickly than Pecorino Romano.

The famed cook also recommends deliberately undercooking your pasta, a helpful technique that lets the noodles finish cooking once sauce is added: When you are two minutes shy of the package’s cooking time directions, toss the noodles with the butter, pepper, and pasta water before killing the heat and adding the cheese.