🇮🇹 Italian
Cacio e Pepe
⏱ 15 min
🍞 ~17g (kid-default portion)
🍽 4 servings
⭐ 5/5
⚠️ Estimates only — not medical advice. Carb counts vary by brand and portion. Always verify with your endo or CDCES.
🌍 Cultural note
Cacio e pepe — literally "cheese and pepper" — is the soul of Roman cooking: four ingredients, a hot pan, and a little wrist technique. There's no cream, no butter, no garlic, no anything fancy. Just pasta water, pecorino, and freshly cracked pepper coaxed into the silkiest sauce you've ever tasted. This is the dish I make when Dash asks for "buttered noodles" and I want to give him something that feels like he's eating in Rome.
Why this recipe is T1D-friendly
- Only 4 ingredients — easy to count exact carbs
- Kid-default ⅓ cup pasta portion + extra cheese keeps it under 20g
- Fat from pecorino slows the glucose curve significantly
- Banza swap drops it to under 10g if you need a tighter target
Ingredients
- 6 oz dry spaghetti or tonnarelli (kid portions below) (~17g per ⅓ cup cooked)
- 1½ cups finely grated pecorino romano (must be pecorino, not parm — trust me) (3g total / less than 1g per serving)
- 2 tsp whole black peppercorns, freshly cracked coarsely (2g)
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (0g)
- Pinch of salt for pasta water (0g)
Pasta options
| Base | ½ cup serving | ⅓ cup serving | ¼ cup serving |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real spaghetti/tonnarelli | 22g | 17g | 11g |
| Banza chickpea spaghetti | 11g | 7g | 5g |
| Shirataki noodles | 1g | 1g | 1g |
| Zoodles | 3g | 2g | 1g |
Default ⅓ cup real pasta (17g — slightly higher because of the high cheese-to-noodle ratio that "binds in" more pasta per twirl). For super-low-carb nights, Banza works beautifully here because the chickpea flavor disappears under the pecorino.
Directions
- Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Salt it less than usual — pecorino is very salty.
- Add pasta, cook 1 min less than package directs (you want it very al dente — it'll finish in the sauce).
- While pasta cooks: crack peppercorns coarsely (mortar + pestle or under a heavy pan).
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium. Add cracked pepper, toast 30 sec until super fragrant.
- Reserve 1½ cups pasta water before draining. The starchy water is the secret — don't skip this.
- Add ½ cup hot pasta water to the skillet with the pepper.
- Drain pasta, add it to the skillet, toss with tongs to coat.
- Take pan OFF heat. Add half the pecorino, toss vigorously — the residual heat melts it without seizing it.
- Add remaining pecorino + a splash more pasta water if needed, tossing constantly until you have a silky, glossy sauce that coats every strand.
- Plate immediately — twist into nests with tongs. Top with more cracked pepper + a sprinkle more pecorino.
Dash's kid tips 🐆
- Grate the pecorino WITH Dash — he gets a job, you get a sous chef
- Skip the heavy pepper on his portion — make his bowl first, then add pepper to yours
- Twirl into a "noodle nest" on his plate — looks like a treat from a restaurant