I struggle to make well emulsified, creamy pasta sauce when using just pasta water and cheese like in cacio e pepe. The best source for good technique I’ve found is ChefSteps cacio e pepe recipe

• Only lightly salt your pasta water
• Cook pasta in minimum amount of water to concentrate the starch
• Concentrate further the cooked pasta water to increase creaminess
• Add cheese off heat

But I still found myself successfully making an unbroken sauce only 3 out of 5 times. And then I found this very untraditional NYT recipe for cacio e pepe with tuna (e tonno?) that uses a blender (!!) to combine the starchy water and the cheese.

Now my hit rate for a well emulsified sauce is 100%. I would love to be able to do this solely in the pan, without having to use + dirty my blender, but it’s just too convenient.