Use This Cheese When You Want Creamy Pasta That's Light Yet Still Delicious

Few meals are as comforting as a bowl of steamy, creamy pasta. But the cost of those decadent cheese-laden noodles is often a heavy, weighed-down feeling afterwards. Sometimes we crave the flavor, sans the post-meal slump. You could skip cheese altogether and go for perfect butter noodles, but if you want something lighter but still creamy and delicious, this easy cheesy swap will hit the spot. When it comes to zhuhzing up your pasta, cream cheese saves the day.

Not only a crowd-pleaser that delivers the goods on the creaminess front, cream-cheese pasta is also quick and easy to execute — no cornstarch, roux, flour, or heavy cream necessary. It's also inexpensive and filling to boot. But the capper is, it doesn't even require much cream cheese. You can start with as little as two tablespoons, adding it to butter and parmesan to approximate Alfredo, or use as much as a 1 cup (with some shredded cheese) for a whole pan of mac n'cheese, adjusting it up or down depending on your tastes, how creamy you want your pasta, and how present you want that signature cream cheese flavor. Obviously, if you don't want to taste cream cheese, stick to smaller amounts. The result will be a lush mouthfeel of dreamy creaminess, but without an overwhelmingly tangy cream-cheese bite. But the key to executing this hack properly is mantecare, aka mixing in the cream cheese thoroughly with pasta water until you have a smooth sauce.

Avoid lengthy cook times, additional thickeners, and dirtying another pan — let the mantecare technique do the work for you. Do it right and saucing a delectable cream cheese pasta will take you less than ten minutes. Do it wrong and you could end up with a stodgy mess.

Simple dishes like this are where al dente pasta is crucial. Even the best sauces can't resurrect mushy noodles. Drain the noodles (saving a fair amount of the pasta water on the side), and add seasoning and aromatics to your now-empty pasta cooking pan. We're talking olive oil, butter, garlic, shallots, black pepper, seasoning blends, herbs, or a little bouillon, whatever you like, sauteing for a minute or two over low-medium heat. Next, add your noodles back to the pot, quickly stirring and adding in a small amount of pasta water, and reducing the heat to low, as you stir.

Continue adding pasta water, a little as you go, to prevent the noodles from sticking, reserving some for the end. Once all the seasonings are incorporated, stir in the cream cheese, allowing it to melt down, while continuously, folding and mixing gently. You should be acting fairly quickly, as you don't want the pasta to cook any more at this point. The dairy and starch from the pasta water will thicken the sauce. Add more pasta water as necessary until you get the desired consistency. When the pasta is creamy and thoroughly coated, remove it from the heat, top with shredded parm, and finish with a drizzle of good quality olive oil, a grind of fresh black peppercorns, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes if you like, to give a pasta-perfect kick of heat to balance the cream cheese. Mangia bene!