Skip to main content
Recipes

Decadent, Cheesy Pasta in a Flash

In cacio e uova, a touch of heat transforms simple ingredients into the silkiest sauce.
By Published Nov. 30, 2021

There’s lots to love when it comes to pasta cacio e uova (“CAH-chee-oh eh WOE-va”). The cheese and egg pasta, called cas ’e ov in its native Naples, doesn’t dirty many dishes, calls for just a handful of ingredients, and makes its way to the table in a flash. The method is simple: Cooked and drained pasta is returned to the pot and tossed with a garlic-infused fat, such as lard, olive oil, or butter. The magic happens when a mixture of Pecorino Romano, Parmesan, and beaten eggs is poured into the pot—as the egg, cheese, and still-hot pasta are stirred together, the cheese melts, the egg cooks, and a smooth and glossy sauce forms to complete the dish. 

With such a straightforward cooking method, the keys to success lay in ingredient selection and proportions. Choosing a pasta was simple—I’d stick with the traditional choice of tubetti, a tubular shape that’s about twice as long as ditalini—but I had a few options when it came to choosing a fat. Lard seemed to be the most traditional choice, but in the past I had found that most lards tasted plain, so I ruled it out, doubting it would bring much flavor to the dish. A test using butter demonstrated that it got lost amid the cheese and egg, so I settled on toasting a couple garlic cloves in olive oil, which lent the dish a subtle complexity. 

With that, I thought I was ready to move on to the rest of my ingredient selection—but then a chat about the dish with Italian food historian Francine Segan stopped me in my tracks. “Lard!” Segan enthused. “Somehow in English the word just doesn’t sound as delicious as it does in Italian. ‘Strutto’—so musical, it melts in your mouth.” With a description like that, how could I not try swapping in lard at least once? And from the first bite of that batch, my mind was made up. The cacio e uova made with lard not only tasted fuller and richer, the cheese flavor heightened, but also felt lighter and cleaner on the palate.

The Curdle Hurdle 

Cacio e uova’s sauce seems straightforward—mix beaten eggs and cheese with lard, hot pasta, and some of its cooking water—yet the mixture can turn out grainy and curdled if it overheats. To keep our sauce from scrambling, we mix the sauce and pasta together off the heat, melting the cheese and bringing the eggs up to temperature using only the residual heat in the pasta and the saucepan. The result? Tubetti cradled in a velvety, ultrasmooth sauce.

Next, it was on to the sauce. I liked the flavor and textural balance offered by using 1 ounce each of tangy Pecorino Romano and nutty Parmesan, but I dithered on the eggs—some recipes call for whole eggs, while others add richness through additional yolks. I saw no need to involve extra yolks, because I liked the consistency that resulted from using whole eggs, but how many to use? A side-by-side test made the answer clear: Made with only one egg, the sauce overheated in the final mixing step and became grainy and curdled. With two eggs, on the other hand, the residual heat contained in the pasta and the pot could only melt the cheese and cook the eggs, leaving the sauce silky-smooth. 

With the sauce worked out, there was just one small tweak left to make. I had been cooking the tubetti until it was al dente but found that the finished pasta was slightly too chewy. I realized that this is because most al dente pasta is tossed with very hot sauce and the pasta cooking water, which helps the pasta cook just a little more so that it’s the perfect firmness when it reaches the table. The tubetti in this dish, however, doesn’t see much pasta cooking water or heat, so to make sure that it would be tender at the table, I had to cook it just past al dente. 

The secret to cacio e uova’s savory depth? Lard.

Sign up for the Cook's Insider newsletter

The latest recipes, tips, and tricks, plus behind-the-scenes stories from the Cook's Illustrated team.

Pasta Cacio e Uova (Pasta with Cheese and Eggs)

In cacio e uova, a touch of heat transforms simple ingredients into the silkiest sauce.
Get the Recipe

0 Comments

Try All-Access Membership to Unlock the Comments
Don't miss the conversation. Our test cooks and editors jump in to answer your questions, and our members are curious, opinionated, and respectful.
Membership includes instant access to everything on our sites:
  • 10,000+ foolproof recipes and why they work
  • Taste Tests of supermarket ingredients
  • Equipment Reviews save you money and time
  • Videos including full episodes and clips
  • Live Q&A with Test Kitchen experts
Start Free Trial
JC
JOHN C.
16 days

Absolutely the best chicken ever, even the breast meat was moist! It's the only way I'll cook a whole chicken again. Simple, easy, quick, no mess - perfect every time. I've used both stainless steel and cast iron pans. great and easy technique for “roasted” chicken. I will say there were no pan juices, just fat in the skillet. Will add to the recipe rotation. Good for family and company dinners too. I've done this using a rimmed sheet pan instead of a skillet and put veggies and potatoes around the chicken for a one-pan meal. Broccoli gets nicely browned and yummy!

Absolutely the best chicken ever, even the breast meat was moist! It's the only way I'll cook a whole chicken again. Simple, easy, quick, no mess - perfect every time. I've used both stainless steel and cast iron pans. great and easy technique for “roasted” chicken. I will say there were no pan juices, just fat in the skillet. Will add to the recipe rotation. Good for family and company dinners too.

MD
MILES D.
JOHN C.
9 days

Amazed this recipe works out as well as it does. Would not have thought that the amount of time under the broiler would have produced a very juicy and favorable chicken with a very crispy crust. Used my 12" Lodge Cast Iron skillet (which can withstand 1000 degree temps to respond to those who wondered if it would work) and it turned out great. A "make again" as my family rates things. This is a great recipe, and I will definitely make it again. My butcher gladly butterflied the chicken for me, therefore I found it to be a fast and easy prep. I used my cast iron skillet- marvellous!

CM
CHARLES M.
11 days

John, wasn't it just amazing chicken? So much better than your typical oven baked chicken and on par if not better than gas or even charcoal grilled. It gets that smokey charcoal tasted and overnight koshering definitely helps, something I do when time permits. First-time I've pierced a whole chicken minus the times I make jerk chicken on the grill. Yup, the cast iron was not an issue.