A group of Italian physicists got tired of their cacio e pepe turning clumpy when cooking for big groups, so they did what any reasonable scientist would do: they mapped the phase diagram of the cheese sauce. The paper, published in Physics of Fluids and titled “Phase behavior of Cacio e Pepe sauce,” won the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, which is awarded for research that “first makes people laugh, then makes them think.”
The problem is a phase transition. When cheese proteins hit around 65 degrees Celsius, they denature and clump into what the researchers formally named the “Mozzarella Phase.” The pasta water is supposed to prevent this via its starch content, but there’s rarely enough starch in it to do the job reliably. The fix: mix 4 grams of cornstarch into 40 ml of cold water until it forms a clear gel, then blend that into 160 grams of Pecorino Romano at low heat. Keep the temperature below 65°C, and the starch physically blocks the proteins from congealing. After that, the paper says “season with pepper as usual.” The physicists solved the emulsification problem and left the rest to you.
For the traditional part they left out: toast a generous amount of coarsely cracked black pepper in a dry pan until fragrant, add a splash of pasta water to bloom it, then combine with your cheese gel and toss with 240 grams of freshly cooked tonnarelli, loosening with more pasta water as needed. The researchers cleaned every petri dish with a piece of bread when they were done.
That last part isn’t in the paper either, but it should have been. Have a good weekend.
