Lazy Girl Three Ingredients Pasta (Printable)

Quick creamy pasta combining butter, Parmesan, and pasta water for a simple comforting meal.

# What you need:

→ Pasta

01 - 7 oz dried pasta (spaghetti, linguine, or fettuccine)

→ Sauce

02 - 3.5 tbsp unsalted butter
03 - 2 oz freshly grated Parmesan cheese

→ For Finishing

04 - Salt, to taste
05 - Freshly ground black pepper, to taste (optional)

# How to make it:

01 - Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions until al dente.
02 - Reserve 2/3 cup of the pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta.
03 - Return the hot pasta to the pot off the heat. Add the butter and toss until melted and the pasta is thoroughly coated.
04 - Sprinkle in the Parmesan cheese and 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the reserved pasta water. Toss vigorously until a creamy sauce forms, adding more water as needed to achieve desired consistency.
05 - Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Serve immediately, optionally topped with additional Parmesan.

# Helpful Hints:

01 -
  • Ready in under 20 minutes, which means you can go from hungry to satisfied faster than most takeout arrives.
  • Tastes like restaurant-quality cacio e pepe without requiring any special skills or hard-to-find ingredients.
  • The kind of meal that feels like a small victory on nights when cooking feels like too much.
02 -
  • Never add the cheese to the pot while it's on the heat, or it'll clump up; the residual warmth of the hot pasta does all the work you need.
  • The pasta water is non-negotiable—it's the starch that makes the sauce emulsify, not cream or anything fancy.
03 -
  • Reserve your pasta water before you drain—there's no recovery if you forget, and that starch is essential to the whole thing working.
  • Keep the heat off while tossing the final sauce to maintain control; the pasta's residual heat is all you need.
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