Butternut Squash Cacio e Pepe
O M F G - can I make this two days in a row? This is a kitchen experiment gone right, and I’m so happy to share it with you. This is neither dairy free nor gluten free, but could easily be made that way. However, I did alter the traditional recipe considerably in an attempt to give it more nutrition. The basic recipe is just pasta tossed in butter, pepper, and a crazy amount of parmesan and grana padano—not very nutritious, despite how yummy it tastes.
I’ve been eating cacio e pepe my entire life. When I was growing up, we just called this macaroni and butter, and it was the only thing I could have as an alternative if my family was eating something gross (which was almost never). None of this “kids menu” stuff in my family - if you didn’t like what we were having for dinner, you didn’t eat. The only exceptions were when my family ate things like capuzzelle, which is a roasted lamb’s head (SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK), or pasta con sarde, which is pasta with sardines and breadcrumbs (I know, I should really like this, but it just doesn’t agree with me). Otherwise I ate whatever my family was having for dinner. I’m personally grateful for this, because even though I would take forever to finish some things, and would complain, etc., I think it gave me the diverse palate that I have today.
I see kids nowadays that survive on mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, and I worry about their ability to enjoy quality food in the future. Don’t get me wrong, I think mac and cheese and chicken nuggets are both delicious, but I can’t even imagine my mother’s reaction if I had asked her to make me a separate dinner from everyone else. I’m pretty sure I’d be dead, or severely hard of hearing from all the yelling and laughing. Case in point, my poor father once complained about roasted chicken for dinner, and, after serving both she and I some chicken, my mom literally threw the rest of it out the back door. I’m not kidding—ask her about it. Or ask our old neighbors in Brooklyn about it. Allora.
Luckily, for me, as Italians, we always had pasta, even with the gross lamb’s head, so putting some in a bowl with butter and cheese on the side wasn’t a huge undertaking. And now as an adult, it’s not only a flavor of my childhood, but I feel like cacio e pepe is having this fancy resurgence on restaurant menus. I’ve literally seen it priced above $20 here in Seattle, and it just makes me laugh, because it costs like $4 to make. The only reason I don’t make it more often is because my husband and I are gluten and dairy challenged. Also, I only stock up on the fancy imported pasta when it’s on sale, because I refuse to pay $8 for a pound of pasta. GTFO, are you kidding me?
The recipe I created last night does have a bit of cheese in it, but we usually do alright when it’s sheep’s milk cheese or raw cow’s milk, so that’s what I used. But I’m going to list parmesan or grana padano in the recipe, because that’s traditional. If you wanted to keep this dairy free, I bet 1/3 cup of nutritional yeast instead of the cheese would be amaze, too. I’ll have to try that one next time.
Ingredients:
- 1 pound long pasta, like bucatini, tagliatelle, or spaghetti
- 1 package of cubed butternut squash (or one small squash, peeled and cubed)
- 1 shallot
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 cup nutpods (or whatever dairy alternative you prefer)
- 1 cup vegetable stock (you can use water, too)
- 1 cup parmesan or grana padano cheese (or a combo of both!)
- Black pepper
- Kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or butter
Directions:
When I cook pasta, I fill my stock pot with water and bring it to a boil first thing - when it boils, I reduce it to low with the lid on, and keep the water boiling for when I’m actually ready to cook the pasta. This way there’s no rushing or risk of overcooking it.
TIP: I also set a timer when I drop my pasta. Overcooked pasta is literally the worst fucking thing imaginable, especially if you spring for fancy pasta.
Chop the shallot and dice the garlic - whatever size you like. Everything’s going to get kinda mashed together, but there will still be pieces of shallot and garlic, so use your personal judgment here. If you’re using a fresh squash, you’ll want to peel and cube it now.
In a saucepan or high-rimmed frying pan, sauté the shallots in the olive oil over medium heat with a pinch of salt and pepper until translucent. About 5 minutes.
Add the garlic, and cook an additional minute or two. Then add the cubed butternut squash with another pinch of salt and pepper. Stir to combine everything, and when the bottom of the pan is starting to dry up a little, add the vegetable stock. Stir everything together and when the stock bubbles, turn the heat down to low and cover the pot for 10 minutes to soften the squash. This may take longer with fresh squash - I used organic flash frozen, which saves a ton of time.
Remove the lid and check the squash - it should be super soft at this point. I then used a wooden spoon to just sort of smash everything together. You can get fancy here and use a potato masher if you want, but I like the rustic look of unevenly mashed squash and shallots. Keeping the pan on low heat, add the cup of nutpods, and combine into a sauce. If it feels too thick, you can add a little more stock, too.
At this point, I usually drop my pasta into the boiling water. Do not forget to salt the water before you cook the pasta. Seriously. And use way more salt than you think - the water should taste almost like ocean water. Remember, every time you forget to salt pasta water, there’s an Italian soul coming back from the dead to haunt someone. Do you want that on your conscience? I think not. Set a timer as well so you don’t overcook it. Most packages will have a suggestion for timing; if yours doesn't, then I usually start at 8 minutes, unless it's fresh pasta, which takes like 3-4 minutes.
Back to the sauce—you should have a creamy, orange-colored sauce at this point. Add the cup of cheese and stir it into the sauce so it’s evenly melted. Taste the sauce and adjust seasonings with salt/pepper. Turn the heat off and cover the sauce.
When the pasta is done, ladle some pasta water into a glass measuring cup or bowl before you drain it. When you’re making pasta like this, where the sauce could thicken as it cools, you want to make sure you save some of the starchy pasta water on hand to thin it out. Once you have your water set aside, drain the pasta.
Now, if you have a huge pan that you’ve been cooking the sauce in, you can just dump the pasta right into it, and fold everything together with another good layer of black pepper. I don’t have that luxury, so I added a ladle of pasta water back to my stock pot, poured the drained pasta over that, and then poured in the sauce. I use tongs or a pasta spoon to combine everything. If it feels too thick, like the pasta is balling up and sticking to itself, then add some more pasta water until you reach your desired consistency.
Serve in bowls with some fresh pepper cracked on the top. Enjoy!!
