15 Pasta Water Sauce Recipes

Fettuccine Alfredo

In Rome, fettuccine alfredo is totally unlike gloopy American versions—silky-smooth, buttery, and light.

By Diane UngerJune 11, 2021

Cacio e Pepe

Cacio e pepe is the simplest of dishes, but achieving creamy, silky perfection took us years of attempts. We did it. And you will too.

By Rose HattabaughFebruary 12, 2024

Egg Noodles with Cabbage, Bacon and Sour Cream

These luscious egg noodles—with caramelized cabbage and onions cooked in bacon fat, topped with a tangy sour cream sauce—are our meatier take on Polish haluski.

By Courtney HillNovember 9, 2022

Pasta with Tomato, Onion and Butter

Marcella Hazan magically transformed three simple ingredients—tomatoes, onions, butter—into a luscious pasta coating.

By Rose HattabaughNovember 9, 2022

Skillet Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Despite its short ingredient list and reputation as dead-easy to make, pasta alla carbonara rarely is great. The eggs go from raw to scrambled in an instant; the window for achieving the perfect luxurious consistency is woefully narrow. Our skillet-on

By Hisham Ali HassanSeptember 4, 2024

Creamy Asparagus Pasta

Nothing says springy like a tangle of fettuccine, coated in creamy, bright green asparagus sauce.

By Julia RackowFebruary 4, 2019

Fettuccine with Asparagus and Pancetta

In Mompeo, Italy, home cook Alfonsina Cortegiani showed us how she makes pasta con asparagi e pancetta, an elegant dish featuring wispy wild asparagus and fresh egg noodles. For our adaptation, look for slender asparagus—about the size of a pencil—and

By Courtney HillFebruary 26, 2025

Spaghetti with Guanciale and Pecorino (Pasta alla Gricia)

To make this minimalist pasta dish, we employ the same unconventional technique we use to make cacio e pepe, another Roman classic. Our pasta alla gricia is a one-pan affair that utilizes the starch released by the pasta as it cooks to create a lightl

By Rose HattabaughFebruary 26, 2025

Orzotto Alfredo with Sweet Peas

This is the delicious marriage of orzo pasta and fettuccine Alfredo. We cook the orzo like rice, as if making risotto, so the starches create a creamy, silky sauce. Butter and Parmesan join the mix as a nod to Alfredo, and sweet peas add color and swe

By Rose HattabaughMarch 27, 2025

Pasta with Parmesan Cream

This silky Pasta With Parmesan Cream is barely a recipe—Parm, lemon, and cream—yet solves the often gooey mishaps of Alfredo and carbonara.

By Diane UngerAugust 10, 2020

Gnocchi with Pesto alla Genovese

In Genoa, the birthplace of basil pesto, we learned that great pesto is a thick, creamy harmony of good-quality ingredients. And each should be treated separately.

Gemelli and Peas with Lemon, Herbs and Ricotta

Citrusy and herbaceous, this easy, spring-inspired meal features garlic, peas and plenty of lemon, both zest and juice. We heat the thawed frozen peas by putting them in a colander and draining the cooked pasta over them. To create an extra-starchy li

By Rose HattabaughOctober 17, 2023

Tagliatelle alla Bolognese

We do our Ragù Bolognese the authentic way—cream-free and silky-smooth. OR Ragu Bolognese—a velvety, creamy-yet-creamless meat sauce—luxuriates in ribbony tagliatelle.

By Diane UngerOctober 30, 2020

Pasta with Pecorino-Zucchini Sauce and Basil

This velvety sauce of pureed zucchini comes from Italy’s Amalfi Coast, where we were served some of the most beautiful pasta dishes of our lives—elegantly simple, all about fresh ingredients.

By Rose HattabaughFebruary 1, 2023

Rigatoni with Roman Broccoli Sauce

Romans use the leaves that grow around heads of broccoli to make a flavorful sauce for pasta. In the U.S., most of the leaves are stripped off before broccoli is sold. Our recipe instead uses the stems, which are equally flavorful and produce a silky