This creamy, Cottage Cheese Cacio e Pepe is a protein-packed twist on the Italian classic. No cream needed—just blend cottage cheese, black pepper, Parmesan, and starchy pasta water to make a luscious sauce. Ready in under 20 minutes!
Creamy Cacio e Pepe
If you love traditional cacio e pepe pasta but wish it had a little more staying power, this Cottage Cheese Cacio e Pepe is the answer. It has all the bold, peppery flavor you expect, but with a creamy sauce made from blended cottage cheese that adds a protein boost—16 grams per serving! You can always amp it up by tossing in grilled chicken or grilled shrimp. And if you’re looking more ways to sneak cottage cheese into your meals, check out more of my Cottage Cheese Recipes here!
Why This Recipe Works
I tested creamy cacio e pepe on my husband Tommy, who’s always a little skeptical when I sneak cottage cheese into recipes. But he loved it and even gave it the “picky husband” seal of approval. If that’s not a win, I don’t know what is!
- Cottage cheese makes it creamy without cream. Blending it gives you a rich, velvety sauce that feels indulgent but is actually lighter and packed with protein.
- Pasta water is the secret weapon. It loosens the sauce and helps it cling to every strand of pasta for that classic glossy finish.
- It’s fast and pantry-friendly. No need for heavy cream or butter—just simple ingredients you probably already have.
- More protein than traditional cacio e pepe. With 16 grams per serving, it’s more satisfying and keeps you full longer.
- Adult mac and cheese. The black pepper elevates the meal, but it’s still a cheesy pasta your kids are sure to enjoy.
- Dietary Restrictions: Weight Watchers-friendly, vegetarian, gluten-free (if using GF pasta), high-protein
I’ve tested several pasta recipes with cottage cheese, like this Lasagna and these Stuffed Shells, and many more while working on my new Skinnytaste High Protein cookbook. It hits bookstores on October 7, and you can pre-order it now.
Ingredients You’ll Need
Here are the ingredients for cottage cheese cacio e pepe, which translates to “cheese and pepper” in Italian. See the recipe card below for the exact measurements.
- High-Protein Pasta: My favorite is Barilla Protein+, and I recently tried and enjoyed Goodles, which many readers recommended.
- Low-fat Cottage Cheese provides extra protein. Good Culture and Nancy’s are great since they have thicker consistencies than some other brands.
- Garlic adds flavor to the sauce. There’s no need to mince it, as it’ll be blended with the sauce.
- Cheese: Buy a block of high-quality Pecorino Romano and Parmesan and grate it at home for the best taste.
- Black Pepper is essential–It’s the “pepe” in “cacio e pepe.” Use freshly ground pepper for the best flavor.
What’s the difference between Pecorino Romano and Parmesan?
Both are firm, white cheeses, but Pecorino Romano is made with sheep’s milk and Parmesan is from cow’s milk. Pecorino has a saltier, tangier flavor, while Parmesan is nuttier. It’s also often aged longer than Pecorino, which means Parmesan’s texture is harder and drier.
How to Make Cacio e Pepe
Just a few simple ingredients create a creamy, indulgent pasta sauce that’s secretly full of protein. Plus, it doesn’t take long to get on the table, making it perfect for busy weeknights. See the recipe card at the bottom for printable directions.
- Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water until it is al dente. When draining the pasta, pour 1 cup of pasta water into a measuring cup. This starchy water is the key to making the cacio e pepe sauce.
- Make the Cottage Cheese Pasta Sauce: Add the cottage cheese, garlic clove, both grated cheeses, and a half cup of pasta water to a blender and blend until smooth.
- Combine the Pasta and Sauce: Add the sauce to a skillet and warm it, without letting it bubble. Stir in the pepper, pasta, and a quarter cup of pasta water. If it’s too thick, add a few tablespoons of pasta water until it’s creamy and smooth.
- Garnish the cacio e pepe with more Parmesan and black pepper.
Helpful Tip for the Creamiest Sauce
Sauce Consistency: The sauce may seem thick at first, but don’t panic—just keep adding pasta water a little at a time while tossing. It transforms into a glossy, creamy sauce that coats the noodles beautifully, with no need for cream.
Variations
- Gluten-Free Cacio e Pepe: Substitute your favorite gluten-free pasta.
- Pasta Shape: Swap spaghetti with fettuccine or bucatini. Cacio e pepe traditionally uses long pasta, but short pasta, such as rotini or farfalle, will also work.
- Cottage Cheese: You can use whole milk cottage cheese for an even creamier pasta, but I wouldn’t use fat-free.
- Cheese: Use only Pecorino Romano or Parmesan if you don’t want to buy both.
- Veggie Mix-Ins: Make it heartier by adding spinach, broccoli, or mushrooms.
- Extra Protein: Stir in shrimp or diced chicken breasts.
- Flavor: The grated cheeses add salt, but if it seems like it’s missing anything, sprinkle in a little salt. You can also finish it off with crushed red pepper for some heat.
Parmesan Cheese Tip: Save the Pecorino Romano and Parmesan rinds to add to soups later. As the rind simmers, it softens and infuses the broth with a delicious cheese flavor. I like to store my rinds in a zip-locked bag in the freezer, so I always have one available.
Serving Suggestions
This high-protein cottage cheese pasta can be a light vegetarian meal on its own, but if you’d like to serve it with something green, here are some vegetable side dish ideas:
Protein Add-Ins
This dish has 16 grams of protein per serving. Boost the amount by adding more protein:
Storage
- Refrigerate leftover pasta for 5 days.
- Freeze in one airtight container or several smaller ones for individual portions. It’ll last for up to 3 months in the freezer.
- Thaw overnight in the fridge and microwave until warm. If the pasta absorbed a lot of sauce, add a splash of water to loosen it up.
More Cottage Cheese Recipes You’ll Love
For more high protein recipes, check out these five delicious cottage cheese recipes to inspire your next meal!
- Savory Cottage Cheese Bowl
- Lasagna Roll Ups with Cottage Cheese
- Protein Waffles
- Cottage Cheese Cheesecake
- Berry Cottage Cheese Breakfast Bowl
If you make this healthy cacio e pepe recipe, I would love to see it. Tag me in your photos or videos on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook. And be sure to join the Skinnytaste Community to see what everyone’s cooking!
Cottage Cheese Cacio e Pepe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 8 ounces protein spaghetti, Barilla Protein+, or your favorite gluten-free pasta
- 1 cup low-fat cottage cheese, I love Good Culture
- 1 clove garlic, peeled and smashed
- 2 tablespoons Pecorino Romano cheese, freshly grated, or vegetarian cheese (check labels)
- 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, plus more for garnish
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more for garnish
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, cook the pasta according to the package directions for al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of pasta water.
- In the meantime, add the cottage cheese, garlic, pecorino, parmesan, and 1/2 cup pasta water to a high powered blender. Blend until completely smooth.
- Add the sauce to a skillet and heat over medium. Once the sauce is warm but not bubbling, add the pepper and the cooked pasta to the sauce and toss to combine. Add 1/4 cup of the pasta water and stir. If the sauce seems too thick, add more of the reserved pasta water, a few tablespoons at a time until you reach your desired consistency. It should be creamy and smooth.
- Serve topped with extra parmesan cheese and plenty of black pepper.
I’ve followed this recipe to the T several times and the sauce always ends up clumping/breaking apart
Unfortunately the sauce broke like alot of others. The flavor was good but a bit dissapointing.
This was so delicious and husband tested and approved! This is one of my favorite Skinny Taste Recipes. You need to make this for dinner!
Delicious and easy! I used pre-grated parmesan and doubled the amount in place of the pecorino (basically used what I had in the house) and subbed high protein penne for the spaghetti. Next time I’ll follow more exactly, but really good, and I would have no idea that there was cottage cheese in the dish – LOL
Absolutely LOVE this recipe! The whole family will eat it! I’ve added different proteins (grilled chicken or shrimp) and even some cooked veggies (peas are delicious) right at the end, to make it a complete meal. It’s a must-try!
So glad you loved it
Will make again but with far less pepper and only half the pasta water. I couldn’t finish even one serving, it was incredibly spicy hot. I think it would be better to give the measure of pepper in weight not volume, as grind size is different for all of us and my grind must be much smaller than yours.
It was beautifully silky (no problem with it breaking at all) with the initial 1/2 cup of pasta water but the 1/4 cup addition made it really runny and I wasn’t able to reduce it without scorching the bottom. I used 1% fat cottage cheese and that may have contributed to the watery consistency. A few tweaks and I will try it again.
Loved it! Even my husband liked it. He’s getting more used to my lower calorie, higher protein quest. Very tasty. No problem with the sauce. Added a few shrimp for fun. Amazing what cottage cheese can do.
This recipe is excellent. The flavors were so delicious, even though I let my sauce get too hot and it clumped. My family loved it, even my picky three year old. I can’t wait to try it again and pay better attention to my sauce!
Made this recipe again tonight and it came out perfectly. I watched the sauce like a hawk and it came out so creamy and luscious. This recipe is so easy, I’m definitely adding it to my weekly rotation. Thanks, Gina!
Flavors were there, but like others, the sauce broke when I added the pasta. With time over heat, the sauce did come back together, but in the meantime my pasta overcooked. I’ll try again, undercooking the pasta some so that it can finish cooking as the sauce comes back together at the end.
Big miss for us. The flavor was very sour and the sauce broke.
Sounds like you used a different brand of cottage cheese? Good culture isn’t sour at all.
This was fantastic. I broke my rule of always trying something first before serving to guests but I went ahead with this one, because it was skinnytaste! It was delicious. My one mistake though was not heating it through enough to serve hot. I will definitely make again! Thank you!
Loved it and it was really easy. Instead of a skillet, though, at the en I used the same pan I cooked the spaghetti in and it worked great.
I made this for lunch today and it was awesome! Cacio e Pepe is one of my favorite pastas, but it doesn’t usually keep me full for long without a protein. So the addition of cottage cheese is a game changer! Here are a few variations I made:
1. Instead of grating the parmesean cheese, I just threw it in the blender first, then added the rest of the ingredients. Easy peasy!
2. I added a little crab meat to it, because I had some leftover.
3. I also added in a little Old Bay seasoning, because I’m a Marylander. Can’t have crab without Old Bay!
When I tell you it was out of this world – it’s phenomenal. So cheesy and creamy. I’m already salivating for the left overs!
Hello! I make many of your recipes and love them all!
I had trouble with the sauce. It was smooth and creamy when I heated it, but when I added the pasta and pasta water, it got lumpy. Any suggestions?
Same thing happened to me.
Same thing happened to me. Everything was going well until I added the pasta.
Same here!!!
I had the same problem. I had a beautiful sauce until I added the pasta, and then everything clumped. I wonder if there was excess water that wasn’t drained when I drained the pasta, and that addition ruined it next time – and there will be a next time! – I think I will do with the Italian way and put the pasta in a bowl and pour the sauce over it and toss it.
Trust the process! Keep adding pasta water a little at a time and it comes together magically. Cacio e Pepe is one of my favorite dishes and this will be a new favorite go to. Thank you for another wonderful recipe Gina!
This was so good and so easy. My whole family loved it-we had zero leftovers. My sauce was super clumpy at first and I was worried but I just kept stirring and adding pasta water, little by little. It eventually because this deliciously creamy sauce. My husband couldn’t believe it was from cottage cheese. Definitely splurge and buy the cheese mentioned and grate them yourself. Will be making this again!
loved this recipe and so did my family! using an immersion blender was key to getting the sauce to the right consistency. i added chicken and it was instantly a family hit!
Delicious recipe! I only had parmessan cheese so used 6 tbsp of that. For my palate I will try half the pepper next time but other than that I would not change anything else. It’s light, cheesy, creamy and I love the tangy hit.
Made this tonight….absolutely delicious! I was sure I would be able to taste the cottage cheese, but, no, it just had a creamy, cheesy taste, I will definitely be making this again real soon!
I made this dish tonight, and my husband and I both thought it was delicious. It reminded me of a much lighter Alfredo that was much easier to prepare. I served it with shrimp and a beet salad. We definitely plan to make it again soon together!
This is delicious — reminds me more of an alfredo than a cacio e pepe, though. I’ll certainly keep it in rotation! Cacio e pepe is literally just pasta, pasta water, cheese, and pepper…the creaminess of this takes it up to alfredo status, I think!! But, it’s delightful!!!
I’ve been making skinnytaste recipes as far back as I can remember and this is the first time I’ve left a review although most of the recipes I have tried have been hits. I was positive this recipe was a flop. I served it to my family with apologies because, while the taste was fine, it was a gloopy mess. It wasn’t until I want back to decide if leftovers were worth saving, added even more of the pasta water (I felt like I had already added so much with zero improvement!) and gave it one final stir that brought the whole thing together into a perfect creamy sauce. It even reheated perfectly for lunch today. I honestly thought Gina had lost her mind with this one, but it just took a little bit more patience. I’m for sure trying it again. As a side, I served it with grilled shrimp which was great.
I’ve never had real cacio e pepe before, so I’m not sure what it’s supposed to taste like, but this version is really good! It was super easy to make and it has been added to our pasta rotation.
Things I did differently:
– didn’t use the protein pasta. The Barilla +protein angel hair only had 3g more protein per serving than the regular Barilla angel hair, so I used what I had.
– kept out 2 c of pasta water, and I’m glad I did. Mine thickened up REAL quick and I needed to thin it out. (I was cooking with gas and a stainless steel pan, could have been a factor? idk) but I was very happy to have more than less, being that it’s going down the drain either way.
Thank you for pasta recipes that don’t involve tomato sauce! Love, a GERD sufferer
So this was PHENOMENAL (once I got it right). I think there should be a warning, however, that there’s a high risk of the sauce splitting and how to avoid this. Because that’s what happened to us once we added the pasta. Luckily the recipe is simple enough that we whipped up a second batch, rinsed our pasta and started again. We did end up eating luke warm and frustrated. lol!
That being said, it was soooooo good that even our kitchen disaster won’t deter us from making this again. So savory, creamy and luxurious, really. Hard to imagine this is under 300 calories.
Gina, any advice on how to avoid splitting yet still having a hot bowl of spaghetti? I know we can’t let the sauce bubble but in doing so, the sauce didn’t get very hot. Any tips would be appreciated.
When I made this, the sauce was all separated. Completely liquid under and then there was clumps of melted cheese. Did I not blend it enough? Or any ideas on what would cause this? It still tasted fine, but I imagine much better with the sauce turning out correctly!
This happened to me too! Then I added a couple handfuls of spinach and some cooked chicken breast cubes and stirred for a while to get the spinach to wilt…. And the sauce magically turned creamy! I think it might have been the water in the spinach, so maybe just keep adding more pasta water next time while stirring till it comes back together!
Same happened to me. I just kept stirring and adding pasta water even though it seemed watery after the cheese sauce separated. After about 7 minutes of stirring it became a beautiful sauce.
My husband is not a pasta person. I have to talk him into it more often than not. He not only loved this, he asked for seconds. AND he didn’t mind it didn’t have chicken in it (which is his go-to addition when he does have pasta). Fantastic again! Thank you!
Tried once with the sauce and it separated. Quickly remade it and it turned clumpy when adding the noodles. Not creamy at all. What did I do wrong?
To prevent the sauce from separating, blend it until completely smooth and avoid adding it over high heat—toss it with the pasta off the heat, adding pasta water gradually until creamy. Even if it separates, when you add the remaining Parmesan it all blends together.
I have no pecorino romano. Can I sub the Parmesan instead? Or will that change the recipe too much.
This recipe didn’t turn out well for me
The sauce had clumps when I put in the pasta . I’m not sure why
I really like the idea and simplicity of this. It just didn’t turn out correctly
Mine sauce also got clumpy when I added the pasta. I’m wondering what I did wrong? Because the taste was delicious and I also love to simplicity and protein of this meal!
To prevent the sauce from separating, blend it until completely smooth and avoid adding it over high heat—toss it with the pasta off the heat, adding pasta water gradually until creamy. Even if it does separate, when you add the remaining parmesan it all comes together. Using a different brand of cottage cheese I noticed will give different results.
I have two guesses. Either it wasn’t blended completely smooth or the heat was too high when you added it to the pan. Definitely worth a re-try!
My husband passed away a couple of month ago so I made this for one. I cut everything in fourths except the garlic. (I like garlic!). It turned out quite delicious!
Can ricotta be used instead of cottage cheese?
Sure
Made this tonight with shrimp. It was a hit for the whole family. No one could tell it was cottage cheese. Will definately be making this again
Perfect!
I’ve been interested in recipes that use pasta water. Would you know if my gluten free pasta will yield the same quality to the recipe?
I havent tested but I am sure it would be ok
Will be making this one, sounds yummy 😋 and easy . Have several options to add your meat, seafood or veggies!
Love this recipe I add shrimp peas and carrots. Family favorite