Ig Nobel Prize 2025: How to Master Cacio e Pepe

Cacio e Pepe is one of Italy`s most beloved dishes, but its creamy sauce can be a challenge. ISTA scientist Fabrizio Olmeda and colleagues from Max Planck Institute in Dresden, University of Padova, and University of Barcelona found a scientifically sound solution to master the sauce every single time.

Yes, there’s even a publication! And yes, this research won the Ig Nobel Prize in 2025.

Measurements based on the publication:👇
– 4 g powdered starch (potato or corn starch)
– 40 ml water (to be mixed with the starch)
– 160 g pecorino Romano
– 240 g pasta (ideally tonnarelli)
– Water to cook the pasta
– Pasta-water
– Black pepper and salt (season to taste)

Kacha Pepe is one of the Italy’s most beloved dishes, but achieving that perfect creamy sauce is tricky and can easily go wrong. I’m Fabitio, a physicist at Ista and I struggle with it too until we found a scientifically sound solution to master the sauce every single time together with colleagues from Maxplank Institute in Dresden, University of Padawan University of Barcelona. We investigated the science behind this sauce. And yes, there is an actual preprint about this. Perfecting kaja pepe is all about making a few but smart changes. If we would mix the usual ingredients, pepper, pasta, pegino cheese, pasta water, you might end up with clumpy mozzarella-ike sauce. What’s happening here? The starch in pasta water is supposed to emulsify and stabilize the sauce. However, it’s rarely enough on its own. What we found is that using just the right amount of starch is key to a perfect sauce. Simply dissolved powder starch between 2 to 3% of the cheese mass into water. Make a starch gel. You will see the water turn clear and thickens. Mix this gel with the cheese at low temperature so that the starch binds to protein preventing clumps formation. Combining the pasta with the pepper. Then adding the sauce. Perfect cash.