I was on the hunt for a creative, inspiring way to cook some Trader Joe’s ravioli when I stumbled upon Ree Drummond’s easy, 20-minute cacio e pepe recipe.
The dish looked simple — it just called for five ingredients beyond ravioli, and most were straightforward — but Drummond promised the peppery sauce would taste “magical.”
Like many people who love cooking shows, I’ve been a longtime fan of the Pioneer Woman, but I’d never made one of Drummond’s recipes.
As a fan of easy weeknight dinners and flavorful sauces, I knew this was my chance to put her famous, cozy charm to the test.
Here’s what happened when I tried the recipe on my own.
The ingredient list is short and sweet.
This recipe only requires the most basic of ingredients: salt, store-bought ravioli in a flavor of your choice, whole black peppercorns, salted butter, heavy cream, and grated Pecorino Romano cheese.
Drummond recommends using cheese or mushroom ravioli, or a combination of both — because the recipe calls for two packages of ravioli, it’s easy to mix and match.
I used a vegetable-cheese ravioli and a mushroom-truffle ravioli I found at my local Trader Joe’s.
Once I gathered all my ingredients, the first order of business was to cook the ravioli in a pot of heavily salted water, according to the package directions.
Before I drained the ravioli, I made sure to reserve a little over a cup of the cooking water. Whenever I make pasta, I keep a small metal measuring cup near my stove as a reminder to scoop out the liquid before it’s too late.
I’ve learned that it’s always good to save a little more pasta water than the recipe instructs. That way, I can easily loosen up a sauce if it becomes too thick.
I crushed the whole peppercorns.
I did this as Drummond instructed: by placing the whole peppercorns in a resealable plastic bag, then using the bottom of a cast-iron skillet to crush them against a cutting board.
This step would have been a lot smoother if I owned a mortar and pestle, because the plastic-bag method produced crushed pepper of varying sizes.
In my opinion, this didn’t impact the final dish’s quality, but it’s something to keep in mind.
After that, it was time to make the sauce.
I heated the butter in a skillet, adding in the crushed pepper as I went. As I lightly toasted the pepper in melted butter, the mixture became more fragrant.
After about a minute, I poured in the heavy cream and pasta water, then brought the sauce to a simmer.
I added the ravioli, and my kitchen smelled amazing.
Once small bubbles start to form in the sauce, it’s finally time to add the ravioli.
At this point, I wondered if I’d made a mistake with the sauce — it was very loose and thin. As I tossed the squares gently into the liquid, though, the ravioli became coated in a thick, opaque white cream. My kitchen smelled incredible.
The final step is to remove the pan from the heat, shower the ravioli with cheese, and toss the whole thing one more time until the cheese is melted.
If you prefer a sauce that’s slightly less thick, Drummond recommends adding extra cooking water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until you reach your desired sauce consistency. I only needed to add a single additional tablespoon.
Drummond suggests serving the ravioli with more pecorino on top, and I’m glad I did. To add some spice, I also used crushed red pepper as a garnish.
This cacio e pepe ravioli was simple yet luxurious.
Drummond describes this pasta sauce as “magical,” and I couldn’t agree more. It was creamy without being too rich. The heavy cream was a wonderful touch — I hadn’t seen it in other traditional cacio e pepe recipes, but it added some body and heartiness to the dish.
The toasted peppercorn really shone through, even amid the butter and heavy cream. The sauce clung to every nook and cranny of the ravioli, making this the dinner dish of my dreams.
I also appreciated how quickly the entire meal came together. From start to finish, the recipe took me less than 20 minutes to prepare and cook.
Drummond’s elevated ravioli is about to become my fast, filling, go-to dinner for nights when I don’t want to order takeout, but don’t have the energy to cook a complex meal.
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