Cacio e Pepe with Sweet Peas

Ingredients

• 12 oz Semolina pasta (dry)
• 2 tsp Black pepper, coarsely cracked
• 3 tbsp Unsalted butter
• 1 ¼ cups Pecorino Romano, finely grated
• ¼ cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
• 1 ½ cups Frozen peas
• 1 tsp Kosher salt
• 1 tsp zest Lemon (optional)

Method

1. Boil the pasta in less water than usual, salted, so the water gets genuinely starchy. That water is an ingredient, not waste.
2. Grate the cheese on the finest holes you have while the water heats. Pre-grated cheese is coated in anti-caking starch and will go grainy on you — this is the most common way this dish fails.
3. Toast the cracked pepper in a dry skillet over medium for 60 seconds, until it smells sharp and floral. Add the butter and let it melt.
4. Add the peas and a ladle of pasta water to the skillet and simmer 2 minutes.
5. Drain the pasta about 2 minutes shy of package time, reserving 1.5 cups of water. Add the pasta to the skillet with another ladle of water and toss over low heat for a minute.
6. Take the pan off the heat and wait 30 seconds. Now add the cheese in three handfuls, tossing hard between each, adding splashes of water as you go. Off the heat is essential — direct heat is what makes the cheese seize into strings.
7. Keep tossing until it turns glossy and coats the pasta. Serve immediately with lemon zest if you want it, in warmed bowls. This dish waits for nobody.

Notes

✨ The restaurant touch

Warm the bowls under hot tap water and dry them. Cacio e pepe on a cold plate tightens within a minute; on a warm one it stays silky to the last bite.

🧒 For the kids

Halve the pepper. This is macaroni and cheese with a better pedigree and it usually lands well, though the peas may get picked out — put them in anyway.

🌿 From the garden

Sugar snap and shelling peas go in the ground here in late March, as early as you can work the soil, and are done by late June. Fresh shelled peas in this in May are worth the row.

🥡 Leftovers

Almost none, in practice. What survives will not reheat well — the emulsion breaks. Make what you will eat.

Per serving

Computed from USDA FoodData Central values. A planning tool, not medical advice.