Like France has its mother sauces, Rome has its fundamental pastas. There are four classic Roman pasta dishes: cacio e pepe, carbonara, amatriciana, and alla gricia. Each one is a variation on the other — alla gricia is cacio e pepe plus guanciale, carbonara is gricia plus egg, and so on. These four dishes are famous in all of Italian cooking, not just in Rome. (Historians can't entirely agree on whether or not all four actually originated in Rome, as it were.) They are pillars of Italian cuisine. And all four rely on a specific type of culinary magic: emulsification.
In their most basic form, emulsions are mixtures of teeny tiny droplets of fat suspended in water. While that doesn't sound very appetizing, or like a suitable sauce for pasta, it's the basis for all four sauces. Other popular examples of culinary emulsions are things like vinaigrettes and mayonnaise (and, weirdly enough, hot dogs); these are obvious instances of seamlessly combining oil with a water-based ingredient, like vinegar.
Roman pasta sauces are ever so slightly more complex, but essentially rely on the same technique. All of these sauces use finely grated cheese and pasta water to create the base of their emulsions, with some additional ingredients like egg or rendered guanciale fat providing extra stability. Of course, the key to transforming these humble ingredients into impossibly silky sauces is in the vigorous mixing that distributes the fat into smaller droplets.
Once you've mastered the technique of emulsifying the cheese and water, you can easily make all four dishes, along with a plethora more. If you're new to the wild world of emulsified pasta sauce or Roman pasta, I recommend starting with cacio e pepe; it's the most straightforward and forgiving. The other three will be a breeze once you've made this delicious dish successfully a few times.
The Foundation: Cacio e Pepe
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Arguably the most well-known of the Roman pastas, cacio e pepe is the foundation of all the subsequent dishes. Like many Italian dishes, cacio e pepe is made from just a few simple ingredients. Cacio loosely translates to "cheese;" more specifically, a sheep's milk cheese — but Pecorino-Romano and Parmesan are still considered traditional to use. Pepe is Italian for "pepper." Needless to say, you're working with some pretty simple ingredients here — the technique is the complex part.
The secret is rambunctious, enthusiastic mixing; this is what seamlessly blends the cheese and pasta water into a cohesive sauce. The devil is really in the details when it comes to this technique: One wrong turn, and you can end up with a pan of clumpy, half-melted cheese globbed onto the pasta noodles. Forming a paste with the grated cheese a splash of cold water, as demonstrated in the recipe below, acts as insurance against the dreaded globbing. Consistent practice makes perfect when it comes to cacio e pepe, and it's well worth the effort. Done right, and you'll be rewarded with a delightfully luscious, creamy, and satisfying pasta dish that will put you off the jarred Alfredo sauce for life.
How to Make Cacio e Pepe
Ingredients:
- 8 ounces dried pasta
- 1 ounce Parmesan cheese (plus more for serving), grated
- 1 ounce Pecorino-Romano cheese, grated
- Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
1. Boil pasta in a pot of heavily salted water for about 2 minutes less than the package directions recommend.
2. Preheat a large skillet over medium-low heat.
3. In a small mixing bowl, add both cheeses, a generous amount of black pepper, and a splash of cold water; mix vigorously to form a paste.
4. Drain pasta, reserving about 2 cups of pasta water.
5. Add about 1 cup of pasta water to the skillet; add in the drained pasta and toss. Dollop the cheese paste around in the pan. Mix vigorously to create a smooth sauce, adding in more pasta water as needed to achieve desired consistency.
6. Taste, adjust seasoning as desired, and serve topped with more Parmesan and more black pepper.
The Sleeper: Gricia
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For some reason, pasta alla gricia just hasn't taken off in the U.S. the way that cacio e pepe or carbonara have. This is absolutely baffling to me! Cacio e pepe is excellent for vegetarians or during lunch breaks when you only have enough time to boil water — but with the addition of guanciale, cacio e pepe turns into gricia, something even more magical. It seems unimaginable that the luxurious silkiness of cacio e pepe could be topped, but the emulsification of the guanciale fat into the sauce takes it to another level entirely. Gricia exists in the liminal space between cacio e pepe and carbonara, but is the (delicious) bridge between the two. And as you'll see, gricia is the pasta that walks to allow amatriciana to run.
How to Make Pasta Alla Gricia
Ingredients:
- 8 ounces dried pasta
- 6 ounces guanciale, diced
- 1 ounce Parmesan cheese (plus more for serving), grated
- 1 ounce Pecorino-Romano cheese, grated
- Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
1. Boil pasta in a pot of heavily salted water for about 2 minutes less than the package directions recommend.
2. Add the diced guanciale to a large skillet and place the pan over medium-low heat. Saute until the fat has rendered and the guanciale is crisp.
3. Meanwhile, in a small mixing bowl, add both cheeses, a generous amount of black pepper, and a splash of cold water; mix vigorously to form a paste.
4. Drain pasta, reserving about 2 cups of pasta water.
5. Add drained pasta to the pan with the guanciale and toss a few times to coat in the fat. Pour in about 1 cup of pasta water and toss. Dollop the cheese paste around in the pan. Mix vigorously to create a smooth sauce, adding in more pasta water as needed to achieve desired consistency.
6. Taste, adjust seasoning, and serve topped with more Parmesan.
The Crowd Favorite: Carbonara
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Carbonara, like cacio e pepe, has grown incredibly popular in the states. First and foremost, it's crucial that I go ahead and establish that pasta carbonara does not include cream. The basic formula is pasta alla gricia, plus egg.
The amount and ratio of whole eggs to egg yolks varies from chef to chef and nonna to nonna, but all authentic recipes include just cheese, egg, and guanciale. Carbonara can be just slightly trickier than gricia or cacio e pepe due to the finicky nature of egg-thickened sauces. Sadly, many discouraged cooks find themselves with a pan full of pasta and scrambled eggs… Emulsions can be elusive things.
Adding the egg right into a hot pan is, by nature, flirting with disaster; the delicate egg with cheese can't withstand the heat and breaks up into its disparate parts. But fear not, we can use an insurance policy (similar to that deployed with the pasta recipes above) against this misfortune. First, we will form an emulsion of egg and cheese, with a little splash of water, in a bowl. And then we toss the hot, guanciale-coated pasta vigorously in the bowl to avoid direct heat. The residual heat from the pasta and rendered fat will cook the egg gently and leave you with an impossibly velvety sauce.
How to Make Pasta Carbonara
Ingredients:
- 8 ounces dried pasta
- 4 ounces guanciale, diced
- 1 ounce Parmesan cheese (plus more for serving), grated
- 1 ounce Pecorino-Romano cheese, grated
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
1. Boil pasta in a pot of heavily salted water for about 2 minutes less than the package directions recommend.
2. Add the diced guanciale to a large skillet and place the pan over medium-low heat. Saute until the fat has rendered and the guanciale is crisp.
3. Meanwhile, in a large, heat-proof bowl, add both cheeses, black pepper, egg, egg yolk, and a splash of cold water; mix vigorously.
4. Drain pasta, reserving about 2 cups of pasta water.
5. Add drained pasta to the pan with the guanciale and toss a few times to coat in the fat.
6. Dump pasta into the large bowl with the cheese and egg mixture and toss vigorously, adding in more pasta water as needed to achieve desired consistency.
7. Taste, adjust seasoning, and serve topped with more Parmesan
The Old-School Classic: Amatriciana
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A mainstay of red checkered tablecloth Italian-American restaurants and Italian dinner tables alike, amatriciana is the old-school crowd pleaser everyone knows and loves. Simply put, amatriciana is a red sauce with guanciale. Generally prepared a little differently than the three preceding dishes on this list, amatriciana still uses the power of emulsion to marry tomato passata, rendered guanciale, and Parmesan cheese. If silky, creamy pasta isn't your cup of tea, but you still love the salty funkiness of guanciale and Parmesan, definitely give amatriciana whirl. Because who doesn't love a classic red sauce… with a twist?
How to Make Pasta all'Amatriciana
Ingredients:
- 8 ounces guanciale, diced
- 1 (28-ounce) can of crushed tomatoes (or whole, peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand)
- Chili flake, to taste
- Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
- 1 pound dried pasta
- 1 ounce Parmesan cheese (plus more for serving), grated
1. Set a large pot of heavily salted water to boil.
2. Preheat a heavy-bottomed skillet or Dutch oven over low heat with diced guanciale in it as the pan heats up. Saute until the fat has almost rendered and the guanciale begins to crisp.
3. Increase heat to medium and add the tomatoes, chili flake, and pepper.
4. Simmer, uncovered, for about 20 to 25 minutes
5. Meanwhile, boil pasta for about 2 minutes less than the package directions recommend. Drain, reserving about 1 cup of pasta water.
6. Add drained pasta into sauce and toss, adding in a splash of pasta water — more if the sauce seems dry. Mix well and turn off the heat; add in Parmesan cheese and mix vigorously.
7. Taste, adjust seasoning, and serve topped with more Parmesan.
Related:
- If You Love Carbonara, You Have to Try Naples' Signature Cacio e Uova
- How to Make Ricotta Gnocchi
- The 30 Best Pasta Recipes to Have in Your Arsenal
