When life gives you lemons, make this!

Chrissy Teigen’s Lemony Arugula Spaghetti Cacio E Pepe is much harder to pronounce than it actually is to make. This simple pasta dish will wow your friends and have them believing it was imported straight from Italy (but we both know the truth.)

Let’s just say this, I did not choose this dish because I thought it would be the most tasty. I actually chose this dish because a while back I saw that Chrissy Teigen herself tweeted that Lemony Arugula Spaghetti Cacio E Pepe was the most popular recipe in her Cravings cookbook. Make it known that I am NOT a chef and I don’t know the last thing about fancy Italian pasta. But I have been cooking my family dinner for years and I was up for the challenge (a challenge that turned out to be wayyy easier than expected.) When reading the recipe, I expected the end result to be some sort of drowned in oil,way too sour, un-melted cheese, knock-off spinach pasta. Boy was I wrong!

Simple ingredients, most can be found already in the pantry. Photo: Hannah Williams

I won’t insert the exact recipe here, but I will include some links at the bottom that will get you where you needto go (or you could just buy the dang cookbook!). Although, I will say that the flavor profile of the pasta is something I could have never came up with on my own. I mean who decided to combine bacon, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and lemon juice?! Whoever it was, they are a genius and I want to bow at their feet. The dish that I expected to force upon my roommates so I wouldn’t have leftovers, had me going back to the fridge two hours after lunch to eat several more bites with my fingers like an animal.

“some sort of drowned in oil, way too sour, un-melted cheese, knock-off spinach pasta”

I classify myself into the “poor college student struggling to pay rent and living off of Knorr Sides” social class. I was slightly taken aback by the fact that Chrissy called for fresh ground pepper, freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, fresh squeezed lemon juice, and fresh minced garlic. What is this word ‘fresh’ that she uses so freely??? Personally, I tend to take the cheapest way out of every grocery item, which usually means buying things frozen or canned. Further, when given the option between pancetta and bacon, your girl obviously went with bacon. The overall execution of the dish was pretty easy. Boil some pasta, cook some bacon, toss things together in the order as instructed and wa-lah! Before you know it you have a spicy, acidic, cheesy, bacony, peppery pasta sent straight from the pasta God himself. I am still not sure if the arugula was important flavor wise, but it sure did make it look pretty. Chrissy nailed this dish on the head and it is sure to be acrowd pleaser wherever you go. So, when life gives you lemons,make Lemony Arugula Spaghetti Cacio E Pepe. Trust me, you won’t regret it.