Lemon Pecorino Pasta – Long pasta is combined with lemon zest, lemon juice and Percorino Romano cheese to make a simple, healthy (ish) dinner for any day of the week
Lemon pasta is something I grew to love over the years. There’s just something refreshing about a pasta dish with fresh lemon, garlic, and olive oil that helps lighten up the starchy carb.
This Lemon Pecorino Pasta recipe is perfect for switching up you typical pasta game but won’t take long at all – under 30 minutes from start to finish.
Here is my easy recipe for Lemon Pecorino Pasta!
What to love about this pasta
There are so many great things about this pasta:
- The lemon flavor is powerful but not sour, thanks to the use of lemon zest
- It only requires a handful of ingredients, many that you probably already have on hand
- It’s ready in under 30 minutes, including pasta cook time
- It has no heavy cream so it’s healthy (ish)
Tips & Tricks
- Make sure you add the cheese slowly or else it will clump up and not get properly absorbed into the sauce.
- Don’t add the lemon zest until close to the end of the cooking process. Cooked lemon zest can get a bitter taste so I try to avoid that as much as possible by adding at the end of the process.
- Make sure to cook pasta just until al dente so it doesn’t get soft and mushy when added to the lemon sauce
Lemon Pecorino Pasta
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 12 ounces long pasta
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup reserved pasta water
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest
- ½ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
Instructions
- Heat large pot of water with 1 teaspoon of salt until boiling. Add pasta a cook until right at al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water and drain the pasta, discarding the rest of the water. Set aside.
- In a large saute pan, place butter and olive oil over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add lemon juice and 1/2 cup of pasta water. cook until it has reduced by half. Reduce heat to low.
- Add pasta to lemon sauce and toss together until pasta is warmed back up. Add lemon zest and 2 tablespoons of Pecorino cheese. Mix together slowly until cheese is incorporated. Add a little water. Once water is absorbed, add 2 more tablespoons of cheese. Repeat with a little more water until all the cheese is added. Turn off heat.
- Add chopped parsley and a little more olive oil to finish it off.
Pin for later:
More recipes that you’ll love:
The Best Fettuccine Alfredo
Ravioli Lasagna
Cacio e Pepe Pasta Risotto
You had me at lemon! I’ve never had this before, I’m excited to try your recipe.
oh this looks so tasty! I will have to try making this with gf noddles and vegan butter seems so GOOD!
This sounds great I love that it is similar to a butter sauce but less calories and more flavor with the lemon and teh lemon zest! Must give it a try!
I love pasta – and I love these types of pasta dishes that are simple and easy. I made something like this all summer – great side for a BBQ too because the fresh, summer flavors.
Such a flavourful and delicious pasta dish! Definitely making this for the family.
Looks so simple! Which I love. And the lemon flavour ideal for summer. Going to have this with a big green salad. Thanks so much
This looks amazing and so tasty! My family is going to be all over this recipe! So excited to give this a try soon!
So refreshing! Perfect for a spring night!
This recipe looks so good. I love anything with pasta thanks for posting this I will definitely try it out.
Love the look of this recipe – and especially the combo of lemon and pecorino together! Need this soon!