A method for optimized route caching includes comparing a destination address of a network packet to a first set of prefixes in a routing cache, and comparing the destination address to a second set of prefixes in a full routing table when a longest matching prefix for the destination address is not found in the routing cache. The method further includes copying the longest matching prefix and a set of sub-prefixes of the longest matching prefix from the full routing table to the routing cache, and forwarding the network packet.