Cacio e Pepe Frittata

An Ode to Asparagus and Spring Cleaning My Way

For eight years, I waited somewhat impatiently for the first stalks of asparagus to shoot up in my inherited garden. (A fortunate house purchase allowed me to enjoy the fruits without the two year wait for edible growth as is common with an asparagus garden). Then each day for the next 6-8 weeks I harvested those pencil thick and bigger to enjoy for at least 3 meals a week.

I have since moved on from that home but still anticipate asparagus season each spring. Then for as long as it lasts, I find every possible way to enjoy this grassy, pee-funk inducing vegetable. This quality is a drawback for many people, my sons included. I just consider it a mild side effect of the sulfuric compounds that are feeding my body the nutrients found in this compound.

My recitation of recipes was Bubba Gump-esque: raw, roasted, grilled, shaved, in a salad, with pasta…oh and risotto, omelet, prosciutto wrapped….

This recipe is just one of many egg-asparagus combinations I have come up with over the years. They just seem to go together with their spring connections. But this one also came about because I was cleaning out my fridge.

The Best Version of Spring Cleaning

You won’t find me cleaning out every nook and cranny of my house in the spring or organizing. But after realizing my fridge and freezer had accumulated lots of odds and ends over the winter, I decided to deal with it.

As is often the case, a recipe began formulating as I saw what was in the fridge - leftover gluten free egg noodles (don’t stop reading gluten eaters…it’s just what I do), a few eggs, the remaining stalks of asparagus from my last haul, and a small amount of parmesan - my brain reached back and found a recipe I made frequently during my years of being a Food Network junkie…Giada’s Pizza de “Spa-ghay-tee" which was essentially a pasta frittata.

While hers used leftover pasta with olive sauce, I used plain pasta and served sauce on the side. My kids loved, my husband loved it, and I loved it. That was a rarity so for a long time, it was a staple in our house. Of course, that version was always asparagus free. Now that’s it’s just the two of us and the boys are living an asparagus free young adult life on their own, I am reviving it with the springy additions of asparagus and a side salad to up the nutrient profile and brunch factor.

Ummmm….Cacio e Pepe?? Really??

Cacio e Pepe is Cucina Provera at its finest. This recipe is far from authentic, rather an homage to the rustic pasta highlighting long pasta with a sauce of pasta water, butter, cheese and pepper and it’s all I could think about as I began cracking the eggs and looking at the other ingredients on the counter.

Steps to Making a Frittata

The basics are:

• Mix together your eggs and seasonings and in this case, add the noodles to the egg mixture.

• Use butter or oil to sauté any veggies or cook the veggies with a fatty meat like sausage or bacon.

• Once veggies are sauteed lightly but still crunchy, add egg mixture.

• Let it cook until set on the bottom, then cover with a plate or platter. Remove from heat and using oven mitts, flip or slide the frittata onto a plate.

• Slide the frittata with the liquid egg side down back into the skillet.

• Let it cook until the bottom is completely set and the middle has no more liquid in it.

• Slide onto plate or cutting board to serve.

• If this seems stressful, see tips below.

Steps for Making Cacio e Pepe Frittata

Tips for Making a Successful Frittata

1. Use leftover pasta if possible. While you can freshly cook pasta to make this, the beauty of it is using leftover pasta in a new way. If you just have enough pasta for one serving, this is a way to stretch it. If you don’t have any leftover pasta, cook 2 oz of long pasta to al dente and proceed with the recipe. You will want to drain it well and even dab it with paper towels or kitchen towel to make sure it’s dried off and the egg will adhere.

2. Use a nonstick skillet. Not your mom’s or grandmother’s nonstick though. Those have lots of terrible chemicals you don’t want to breathe in while cooking or have absorbed into your food. GreenPan is my fave non-toxic skillet. There are no toxic chemicals and everything comes out beautifully. They are so easy to clean, I just have to wipe out with a paper towel or sponge and rinse.

3. Flipping Method vs Oven - If flipping the frittata onto a plate and back into the skillet makes you a bit apprehensive, you can use the oven method. It’s outlined on the bottom of the recipe PDF.

Notes:

• Pasta - Use whatever long pasta you have. It needs to be cooked al dente at least. I’ve tried this with regular and GF spaghetti, but this time I happened to have leftover buttered GF egg nodles from Trader Joe’s. You could certainly try it with any cooked pasta, but I’m not sure how some of the grain-free pastas would work since they have a different texture, but you could try it and let me know.

• Keto/Paleo - Zucchini noodles could work and make this low-carb and Paleo friendly, but I recommend salting and draining them first.

  • Salt the noodles liberally and let sit in a colander for 10 minutes.

  • Rinse them then spread out on a large kitchen towel and roll them up.

  • Squeeze to remove as much moisture as possible then proceed with recipe.

• Veggie Averse - Leave out the asparagus and just serve with fruit.

• Asparagus Averse - Use any other veggie you like or just leave out the asparagus and serve it with a big salad instead.

• Dairy Free - Leave out the parm (or use dairy free such as VioLife) and use Miyokos butter or avocado oil instead of butter.

Full Recipe in PDF below.