5 Pasta Alternatives for Cacio e Pepe When You Don’t Have Fresh Tonnarelli

Of all the pasta dishes that Rome is famous for, it’s perhaps the simplest of preparations that is the most delicious. Using just three ingredients — pasta, black pepper, and pecorino romano — cacio e pepe manages to be not only a satisfying dish but also incredibly tasty and comforting in all its simplicity. However, there are a few tricks to getting this recipe right, and it all boils down to the quality of ingredients, the proper technique, and the shape of the pasta you use.

A traditional cacio e pepe recipe uses freshly made tonnarelli, a long pasta that’s similar to spaghetti but is thicker and square instead of round. Also known as spaghetti alla chitarra in the Abruzzo region, tonnarelli’s rough texture makes it easier for the sauce to adhere to the pasta. Another hand-made pasta, pici, is also widely used for cacio e pepe since it’s thicker and stronger than others such as spaghetti.

But while tonnarelli and pici are the preferred options for preparing this dish, there are other more widely available shapes that will also work. You can choose a similar long pasta or even go with short shapes, as long as they are sturdy and can hold onto the simple cheese sauce. The key to making this pasta dish is the starch contained in the pasta, so when choosing your pasta shape, look for bronze-die extruded pasta, which means a higher quality pasta that will release more starch.

Since spaghetti is the closest shape to the traditional tonnarelli, it is a tried-and-true option for a cacio e pepe that can be made in a pinch. Since a classic cacio e pepe recipe should not contain butter, oil, or cream (after all the name of the dish says it all — cacio for cheese, pepe for black pepper), the starch in the pasta and the pasta water, together with the finely grated cheese, are what give it its incredibly creamy texture.

One of the important tricks for a successful cacio e pepe is to choose a pasta shape that’s sturdy enough to not break apart when tossing and stirring. The idea is to boil the pasta for half the amount of time indicated in the package instructions, then place it in a large stainless steel pan to finish cooking by adding pasta water as needed, moving it around with tongs and shaking the pan. This process is called risottare. 

The point of this process is to release the starch into the liquid to help form the cream. If you use smaller or thinner pasta, such as farfalle or rotini, the stirring process will break the pasta rather than release the starch while leaving the pasta whole. For even better results, look for spaghetti rigati, which is a spaghetti with thin ridges that help the sauce stick to the pasta. In general, ridged pastas will be better for holding a sauce, but more on that later.

Bucatini is a brilliant pasta shape that deserves much more attention than it gets. This tube shaped pasta gets its name from the Italian word buco, meaning hole. In some regions of Italy, especially in the south, the pasta is known as perciatelly, from the verb perciare, meaning to pierce. The underlying idea is that the hole allows the boiling water to cook the pasta from the inside.

The hollow center also allows the sauce to penetrate inside the noodles, which makes bucatini an ideal shape for an extra saucy pasta dish such as bucatini cacio e pepe, since spaghetti only gets coated with sauce from the outside. Don’t expect loads of sauce to go inside the tube either, but enough will go into the pasta to make it worth the try.

Casarecce, which roughly translates as homemade, is a pasta shape made by hand-rolling small sheets of dough around a thin wooden pin or metal rod, which Italians call a ferro, to form little two-inch long tubes leaving a groove down the middle. Similar to cavatelli, casarecce is an excellent pasta choice for holding onto sauces.

Since this pasta shape is traditional in Sicily, it is often found in recipes such as eggplant pasta alla Norma, but that’s not to say that the adorable pasta twists won’t go well in a cacio e pepe as well. The shape is sturdy enough to withstand the process of stirring with the pasta water and cheese to emulsify the sauce, and the crevice in the middle is sure to hold on to some of its rich, cheesy goodness. 

Although casarecce is still a pasta that home cooks enjoy making in the traditional way, commercially produced casarecce is also available. Choose an artisanal bronze die cut pasta instead of a mass produced Teflon-cut one if possible, as the rough edges on the bronze-cut pasta will be better for absorbing the delicate cacio e pepe sauce. If you want to give casarecce a try in other dishes, think Sicilian ingredients such as tomatoes, olives, eggplant, fish, and seafood.

While most small pasta shapes are reserved for Italian soups and stews, there are a few short shapes that can also work in saucy pasta dishes, especially those that are hollow and ridged. One shape that checks all of those boxes is the little-known mezze maniche. Originally from north central Italy but now enjoyed all over the country, it’s said that the pasta’s name, which is Italian for half sleeves, is a reference to the short sleeves of the garments worn by monks during the summer. 

This pasta is shorter and wider than its cousin, rigatoni, with a similar tubular shape and ridged surface perfect for capturing a variety of sauces. Mezze maniche belongs to the maccheroni family, which is the original Italian name for what we know as macaroni, so it’s perfect for oven-baked casseroles and in traditional dishes such as carbonara, gricia, arrabbiata, and, of course, cacio e pepe. It might not be readily available at your usual grocery store, but you can find bronze-cut mezze maniche from a brand like Garofalo on Amazon if you’d like to give this traditional pasta shape.

These very common pasta shapes also belong in the maccheroni family, which can be shorter or longer with walls and central holes that can vary in thickness that may be flat or ridged. And while these shapes are not traditional when making cacio e pepe, they do possess two characteristics that make them good candidates if they’re all that you have in the pantry. 

First is the tubular shape, which helps to gather the sauce within the pasta. Second is the grooved surfaces to which the sauce can stick wonderfully. Granted, it recipe cooking times may vary between these shapes and the more traditional, long shaped pastas, but with a bit of practice and a hint of experimentation, a cacio e pepe made with the more toothsome and firmer penne rigate or rigatoni should be a great addition to your straight-from-the-pantry weeknight meal repertoire.