Pasta al limone is an exercise in simplicity and restraint — a crash course in emulsification resulting in a bright, silky dish that makes for a perfect weeknight spring meal.
Did that make you want to cook it tonight?
Almost like a citrusy cousin to cacio e pepe, al limone is a bright spot in the canon of Italian and Italian American classics. Lemon is its defining flavor — not tomato, not cheese, not even the pasta itself. However you include it, lemon is what makes the dish the dish.
This is a great recipe to help you get familiar with the power of starchy cooking water, the importance of low heat, and the magic of emulsification. Best of all, it comes together in a half hour or less — and it is delicious.
The dish is all about contrast: toothsome pasta coated in a silky, starchy, creamy, cheesy sauce with a burst of lemon to cut through the richness. It’s a wonderfully balanced interplay of acid and comfort.
To do it right, opt for the highest-quality ingredients. Think: organic lemons, European-style unsalted butter (like Plugra) and authentic Parmigiano Reggiano. The pasta itself doesn’t need to be fancy, though.
Some people like to add extras — basil, spinach, shrimp, ricotta, even crab — but those are distractions. The true magic of al limone shines when it’s stripped down to its essentials. Try it that way, just once. You might not go back.
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The finished dish should be incredibly silky and thick, with perfectly al dente noodles slicked in a rich, lemony sauce. And yes, the starchy cooking water is a key ingredient — it binds the cheese, lemon and butter into something greater than the sum of its parts.
A quick note on cream: while some recipes call for it, I find it can flatten the lemon flavor and add a kind of blunt richness that undercuts the dish. If you must, limit it to a tablespoon or two, no more.
This is exactly why people fall in love with Italian cooking. There’s nothing flashy here — just quality ingredients, a simple technique, and a quietly spectacular final result that’s both luxe and deeply comforting.
Ingredients
1 box pasta of your choosing
4 to 5 lemons, zested and juiced (be mindful of those pesky seeds)
4 to 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup Parmegianno Reggiano, grated on a microplane, plus more for garnish
Directions
- Get a large pot of water boiling. Once it's boiling, salt well, like the sea. Cook pasta, reserving a full cup of starchy cooking water before draining. Drain pasta just a minute or two shy of al dente.
- As the water boils, heat a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Melt butter and add zest, stirring together, about 30 seconds.
- Loosely moving the pan in a circular motion, add the lemon juice, plus the starchy water in increments, letting the sauce reduce before adding more. You may not need it all.
- Be careful with seasoning here: with the salt in the increasingly concentrated, starchy cooking water, you may not need to salt at all.
- Cook until pan sauce is creamy and thick. Add more lemon, if you'd like.
- Add your cooked pasta and cheese. Stir well, over low heat, for about a minute or two, lightly moving the pan in a circular motion while tossing with tongs.
- Serve immediately, topped with more cheese and a spritz of lemon juice.
Cook's Notes
- You can opt for whatever pasta you have on hand here. I prefer a long, ribbon noodle here (spaghetti, bucatini, linguini) but a short cut can also work (rigatoni, ziti, penne, even farfalle). Whole wheat pasta could also be a fun swap, which would truly alter the essence of the dish itself.
- I also like grating some zest into the butter at the start of the process, adding juice during the emulsification process and then finishing with extra juice and zest just before finishing. Try to utilize the lemon as best as possible.
- Ideally, opt for real Parmigiano-Reggiano that you grate yourself — sometimes pre-grated cheeses can clump up when they’re added to hot pans, which is not appealing. Or make the sauce in its entirety before just finishing with some grated cheese atop in the serving bowl itself, without the cheese touching the hot pan at all. Up to you!
- Supposedly, some "old school" al limones called for provolone, which would probably be stellar to me. Try that one out, too — why not?
- As far as garnish, you can go with a bit of grated cheese and some extra lemon zest, but if you want to spruce things up a bit, some pangratto (buttered, toasted bread crumbs) works, some finely chopped walnuts or pecans, or some snipped chives or roughly chopped parsley.
- Sometimes, adding other citrus — grapefruit, orange, even lime — can also help deepen and diversify the citrus-forward flavor profiles here. Yes, it’s called al limone — but adding other citrus can help embolden the flavor.
- I sometimes avoid oil here altogether, sticking just with some pats of butter to get everything going instead.
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