Adding one ingredient to iconic pasta dish will make sauce perfectly creamy

Adding one ingredient to your pasta sauce can make the perfect creamy dish each time, scientists have discovered. A group of researchers from believe they have sussed out the secret to making the perfect plate of pasta.

While a traditional "Cacio e pepe" is made using pasta, cheese and black pepper, scientists believe perfecting the sauce poses a problem to many amateur chefs. The sauce is often made by adding grated cheese to the starchy water, with the concentration between the two a "key factor" in "sauce stability," they said.

"Preparing cacio e pepe successfully depends on getting the balance just right, particularly the ratio of starch to cheese," the researchers told The Times.

They added: "The concentration of starch plays a crucial role in keeping the sauce creamy and smooth, without clumps or separation. If the starch content is less than 1 per cent of the cheese weight, the sauce is prone to separating into unpleasant clumps. The pasta water alone does not contain enough starch to stabilise the sauce effectively."

, conducted by a team of Italian researchers living abroad, believes it has found the solution to striking the right balance between starch and cheese. It claims that adding in a powdered starch, such as cornflour or potato starch guarantees a thick, creamy sauce.

They recommend adding the starch directly into the pan. Contrary to popular belief, the researchers do not suggest using the pasta water, known as the "risottata" because the process offers "little control over the final starch amount".

It says a "more precise" method is to dissolve 5g of powdered starch in 50g of water. This should then be heated gently until it thickens and turns from cloudy to clear.

The next step is to combine the starch gel with cheese. However, the scientists believe that manually grating the cheese is "not ideal" because it results in different size chunks.

Instead they say cooks should blend the cheese in the sauce mixture. This should be done after adding in 100g of water in order to balance out the "water-to-cheese ratio".

The sauce can then be finished off by adding black pepper into the mixture. In order to "enhance the flavours and aromas" they explain that using a pre-heated ban is best.

In order to make sure the pasta is thoroughly cooked, the scientists recommend cooking the pasta until it is al dente, saving some of the cooking water before draining. They explained: "Save some of the pasta cooking water before draining. Once the pasta has been drained, let it cool down for up to a minute (even a little bit longer for an amount of pasta 1 kg) to prevent the excessive heat from destabilizing the sauce.

"Indeed, in our experiments, we gradually increased the temperature of the sample over approximately 40 minutes (from 50C to 95C) to minimize kinetic effects. While this level of control is impractical in a kitchen setting, it is important to limit thermal shocks as much as possible to achieve results closer to those observed in our experiments. Finally, mix the pasta with the sauce, ensuring even coating, and adjust the consistency by gradually adding reserved pasta water as needed."

Dr Ivan Di Terlizzi, co-author of the study, told the Guardian that the team consumed 6kg of cheese during the study. He said: "Although we are still not tired of this delicious dish, one of the authors had blood tests showing very high cholesterol levels. It's the price of science."