Avoid Broken Cacio E Pepe Sauce With An Appliance You Already Have

Cacio e pepe is one of the most delicious pasta dishes out there. What makes it even better is that it's also one of the easiest to prepare. With some good cheese, pasta, fresh-cracked ground pepper, and a bit of salty pasta water, you can whip up a gourmet-style cacio e pepe from the comfort of your kitchen. Yet, there's one headache that can be hard to avoid when you're cooking this popular pasta dish: your cacio e pepe sauce breaking.

A broken sauce can truly break (pun intended) a dish. When it comes to cacio e pepe — a simple dish comprised of pasta and Pecorino Romano — the creamy and velvety sauce can clump up and break, seemingly out of nowhere. This happens when the cheese separates from the fat, causing a clumpy, unincorporated sauce. Typically, this is a result of your sauce lacking starch to bind it, or using too much — or too high — heat. And while you can toss your pasta off of the flame, sometimes the pan itself can also retain too much heat. Luckily, there's a hack that you can try to avoid a broken cacio e pepe sauce. It involves a super popular appliance you might already have in your kitchen: a blender.

Blenders can be used for more than just your favorite smoothie; they're a staple for creating sauces, even cheese-based ones (such as for the creamiest mac and cheese). Thanks to chef Luciano Monosilio, we now know a blender can also be a huge help when it comes to crafting a delicious cacio e pepe sauce.

To create an unbreakable cacio e pepe sauce, you should start by making a starch gel. Starch gelatinization is a cooking process that involves heating starch — usually cornstarch — with water to create a gel that thickens liquids and gives food a more desirable texture. (Think of it as a better version of cooking with pasta water.) Simply bring cornstarch and cold water to a boil, then add it to a blender with your Pecorino Romano, black pepper, and olive oil. 

Monosilio's blender technique gives you more control over the consistency of your sauce, and truly incorporates the starch gel throughout. This method ensures that the cheese is evenly mixed with the starchiness of the gel, binding the two together into a break-proof sauce. Additionally, blending ensures that the black pepper is evenly distributed throughout the sauce. When blended, the pepper flavor becomes fully integrated into the creamy cheese sauce, resulting in a harmonious, balanced dish where the spice from the pepper and the richness of the cheese are perfectly in sync.