Spaghetti all’amatriciana. Five ingredients. Fifteen minutes from fridge to table. One magical plate of pasta.
Tangy cheese. Crispy cured pork bits. Spaghetti. Pork. Tomato. With a bit of crushed chili to liven things up.
Diabolically simple. Unbelievably delicious. This one is a bit of a weeknight dinner miracle.
The four pastas of Rome
Amatriciana is one of the four great Roman pasta dishes. A group of seriously delicious dishes.
You’ve probably heard of two of them. And probably never heard of the other two. Actually – if you’re here you’ve probably heard of three.
Carbonara is the most famous Roman pasta. Superstar status. Everybody loves carbonara. Including me.
Cacio e pepe is the other famous one. Literally means cheese and pepper. Three ingredients. And one of them is pepper. Minimalism at its finest.
Grigia is one that nobody has ever heard of. Think carbonara without the egg. Or cacio e pepe with porky goodness. Very tasty stuff.
And then there’s amatriciana. It stands alone. Tomato based. Tastes like a deconstructed Neapolitan lasagna.
This one surprised me. It’s becoming my favourite of the four.
Stop and think about that. I’m saying I think I like amatriciana. Over carbonara.
I did not see that one coming…
Five ingredients make one amazing dish
Spaghetti all’amatriciana has five ingredients. And one of them is spaghetti. So ingredients matter. A lot. There is nowhere to hide. Nowhere at all.
Pay attention to what you put into amatriciana. Because what you put in is what you’ll get out.
This is an easy recipe. Almost impossible to screw up. As long as you make the right the choices. Before you start cooking.
Canned tomatoes for the win
Sometimes fresh isn’t better. It’s pretty rare. I agree. But it does happen. This is one of those times.
Amatriciana screams for canned tomatoes. It’s just a thing. Accept it. I did. And I’m better off for it. You will be too.
This is a fast sauce. A quick dinner. No way you can make it in 15 minutes with fresh tomatoes.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Off-season tomatoes suck. Food cooked using off-season tomatoes also sucks. Garbage in. Garbage out.
I like tomatoes from San Marzano here. If you can’t get those there are other great canned tomatoes out there.
Don’t skimp here. Pick a good quality brand. Did I mention there’s nowhere to hide?
The power of vitamin P
Want to really want to understand what this dish is about? Make it with guanciale. There’s a reason why the real deal recipes call for it.
Guanciale is cured pork jowl. It’s fatty. Really fatty. Which is part of the magic. Fry it up and it throws a bunch of rendered pork fat. Lush, delicious pork fat flavour.
And what’s left is wonderful little bits of crispy piggy candy. Crispy and meltingly tender at the same time.
Pancetta is a mediocre substitute for guanciale. It’s not the same. And it’s not as good in this recipe.
Fried guanciale chunks are porky flavour bombs. If you fry pancetta chunks they gets a little chewy. Just not that good.
I have to drive across town to get guanciale. I can walk to buy pancetta. So I drive. Every single time.
If you do need to use pancetta get your deli guy to cut it thin. And chop it up so the pieces disappear into the sauce. That way you get flavour without the chewy thing.
You’ll have to add some extra fat though. A little olive oil or better yet rendered pork lard should fix you up.
It’s time you got to know pecorino romano
Everybody knows parmigiano reggiano. You’d think they only made one cheese in Italy.
Don’t get me wrong. Parmigiano reggiano is a great cheese. I always have a piece in my fridge.
But variety is the spice of life. And pecorino romano is that spice. The rowdy cousin.
Parmigiano is a cow’s milk smooth. Creamy. Lush. Delicate. Balanced. The perfect complement to many Italian dishes.
Pecorino romano is none of those things. It’s brash. Salty. In your face assertive. And that makes it perfect for amatriciana.
Perfect for the other three Roman pastas as well. If you’re into carbonara you absolutely need pecorino romano in your fridge.
Pasta choices matter
All pastas are not created equal. It never ceases to amaze me. People will spend all day making the most beautiful ragu bolognese. And serve it up on crappy pasta.
A whole day in the kitchen to make a $100 pot of sauce. Thrown away because $5 is too much to spend on spaghetti. It hurts my brain.
FWIW not choosing tagliatelle for bolognese also hurts my brain. A lot.
Google is your friend here. Search “best pasta near me”. Or “best pasta brands”.
Look for something bronze cut. A little texture on the surface. Avoid the sauce-repelling super smooth teflon cut brands you see in grocery stores. Just because a pasta claims to be number one in Italy doesn’t mean it’s good…
Please just try good pasta once. Then decide whether the premium is worth the money. I’m guessing you will.
Spaghetti – not bucatini
Those that know will be saying bucatini is the right choice for amatriciana. That it’s bucatini all’amatriciana. And they would be right.
Technically bucatini is the right choice here. I am not suggesting otherwise. If you want the absolute real deal this is the way.
But bucatini is messy. Hard to eat. It has a super power. A single strand of bucatini all’amatriciana can ruin your shirt.
It is possibly the most difficult pasta to eat known to humankind. Trust me. I have the dry cleaning bills to prove it.
So I go with spaghetti. And I am unrepentant. I find the balance of pasta to sauce to be better. And I’m sick of paying my cleaner for my mistakes…
More can be less
Yes. You read that right. More is less. That’s actually the incredible thing about this recipe. Try to add something and it’s a safe bet you’ll take things backwards.
Onion. Garlic. Olive oil. White wine. Red wine. Parmigiano reggiano. They all sound good. And yet none of them are.
The magic that is Amatriciana comes from tomato, pork, the salty tang of pecorino romano with a little chili to wake things up. That’s it.
I tried to “improve” this dish. I failed. Miserably. Don’t do what I did. Keep the faith. You’ll get to the end game way faster than I did.
This could be your new favourite Tuesday night dinner
Amatriciana is a bit of a conundrum. Five ingredients. Fifteen minutes. That’s 11 minutes and 2 more ingredients than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
And yet the flavours are complex. Satisfying. The interplay of the rich pork fat, acidic tomatoes and salty cheese come together to make something far more than the sum of the parts.
This one crept up on me. Worked its way into my short list of favourite pasta dishes. Up there with a good lasagna. Carbonara. Neapolitan ragu.
For me that’s pretty lofty for a dish with five ingredients. One that you can bang together any night of the week.
Try spaghetti all’amatriciana. The same thing might just happen to you.
Spaghetti all’amatriciana
Equipment
- 1 large frying pan – you want something large enough to toss the pasta with the sauce
Ingredients
- 3 oz guanciale one 1/3 inch slice – don't get too hung up on being precise with the weight
- 1/4 tsp chili flakes
- 14 oz canned tomatoes – go for quality here
- 2 oz pecorino romano – grated. It needs to melt into the sauce. A microplane works really well for this.
- 8 oz spaghetti – again, go for quality
- fresh ground pepper – if that's your thing. I like it some days. Some days I go without.
Instructions
Get everything ready
- You're making spaghetti so put a big pot of water on to boil. Add a bunch of salt. You want the water to taste like the sea. It takes more than you think.
- Cut up your guanciale into 1/4 inch by 1/2 inch pieces. You don't need to be super precise here. This isn't baking
- Pass your tomatoes through a food mill if you have one. Use your hands to smush them up if you don't. It's fun.
- Grate your pecorino.
Make amatriciana
- There are a lot of detailed steps. Don't let that freak you out. This is basically frying up the guanciale, seasoning with a little crushed chili, simmering some tomatoes, tossing some pasta in the sauce and adding cheese. It really is that easy. Easy weeknight cooking once you get it down.
- Grab a big skillet. You will be tossing your pasta in the sauce so plan ahead.
- Preheat your chosen skillet over medium heat.
- Add the guanciale and cook, stirring frequently until you have beautiful little crispy pork bits. Remove the skillet from the heat.
- Remove the pork bits with a slotted spoon and look at how much fat has rendered. You want about two tablespoons or so in the pan. Depending on how fatty your guanciale is you may have a little more or a lot more. Remove all but two tablespoons. Use a spoon and be careful. You are playing with hot fat in a hot pan. That's a pretty lethal combination.
- Make sure your pot of water is at a rolling boil. I mean cranked. Salt your water. Now salt it some more. You want your water to taste like the sea.
- Look at your spaghetti package. There will be a recommended cooking time on it. Set a timer for one minute less than the recommended cooking time and add your spaghetti to your pasta pot. As soon as you can get it all submerged start the timer.
- Add the chili flakes and return the pan to the heat. Give the chili flakes a stir and cook for about 20 seconds then add in the tomatoes.
- Scrape up any browned bits in the pan and simmer the sauce for 5 minutes or until your pasta timer goes off.
- Toss the reserved crispy guanciale pork bits into the sauce. You can hold a few bits back to sprinkle over the amatriciana after you plate. Up to you.
- Transfer the almost cooked pasta to the skillet along with about a 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water. Toss to combine the pasta with the sauce and cook for about a minute.
- Don't worry if it looks a little runny. The pecorino romano will fix that. Have faith.
- Set a bit of cheese aside to garnish. Off heat, add half the pecorino. Toss to combine. Add the other half and toss again.
- You don't want to wait to serve. Spaghetti all'amatriciana doesn't get better with age. Get it on the table!
- Serve topped with a bit of pecorino romano and the reserved guanciale bits if you kept them. A little grind of black pepper is a nice touch.
