# Pasta Cacio e Uova: Naples' Silky Egg-and-Cheese Sauce
Cacio e uova represents one of Italian cuisine's simplest triumphs. The Neapolitan dish strips pasta down to its essentials: eggs, cheese, and heat. No cream. No meat. Just the natural emulsification that happens when hot pasta water meets yolk and pecorino Romano.
The technique demands precision. Cooks whisk eggs with grated cheese, then temper the mixture by slowly adding pasta water while tossing everything together over residual heat. The result flows like silk. One false move, one burst of high heat, and the eggs scramble into clumps instead of coating each strand.
This meatless approach reflects Naples' working-class food heritage. Street vendors and home cooks built meals around what was affordable and storable: dried pasta, eggs from neighborhood hens, hard cheese that aged in cool cellars. Cacio e uova fed families for centuries before appearing on fine dining menus.
The dish sits firmly in pasta's foundational canon, alongside carbonara and aglio e olio. Yet it remains less famous internationally, overshadowed by its Roman cousin. That obscurity speaks to how regional Italian cooking still resists homogenization. Each city claims its own egg-pasta tradition. Naples owns this one.
Building the dish requires good technique but minimal ingredients. Choose aged pecorino Romano for its sharp bite and dense texture. Some cooks add a pinch of black pepper for warmth. The pasta shape matters too. Long, thin formats like spaghetti or vermicelli cling to sauce better than chunky tubes. Short pasta styles dilute the silky coating.
Serious Eats positions the recipe as an accessible entry point into Neapolitan cooking. No special equipment