Authentic Amatriciana Recipe | Pasta all’Amatriciana

Amatriciana is a famous pasta recipe in Roman trattorias and restaurants. Because of this, many people think it’s a dish that was created in Rome. Actually, the recipe has its origins in Amatrice (hence the name), a small town in the Rieti area.

Amatriciana recipe consists of pasta – bucatini or spaghetti – tossed with the classic Amatriciana sauce made with peeled tomatoes, guanciale, chili peppers and pecorino romano cheese. A unique goodness!

Other ingredients, such as garlic and onion, are not present in the authentic recipe from the town of Amatrice, but you will find them in the Roman variant.

Also with regard to pasta, the Roman recipe uses bucatini, while in the authentic Amatriciana recipe you will have spaghetti.

Wanting to respect the traditional recipe of pasta all’Amatriciana (or Matriciana as they call it in Rome), in this recipe we’ll just use spaghetti, pecorino romano, guanciale, chilli pepper and peeled tomatoes.

According to tradition, remember that the right ratio of guanciale to pasta is one-fourth: therefore, for 500 g (1,1 pound) of pasta, you need 125 g (1/4 pound or 4,4 oz) of guanciale.

Some prefer to sauté the guanciale for a few minutes and then add white wine. White wine is listed as an ingredient but is optional; it’s not essential to the success of the recipe, so it depends on taste.

Along with pasta carbonara and cacio e pepe, amatriciana, although a typical recipe from Lazio, has become a classic of Italian cuisine.

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Instructions

How to Make Amatriciana Sauce

Storage

You can store the amatriciana sauce in the refrigerator sealed in a food container for up to 3 to 4 days.

If you prefer, you can freeze it and store it in the freezer for up to a month. Thaw it at room temperature.

You can reheat the amatriciana sauce in a frying pan or in the microwave.

Finally, it is possible to store pasta all’amatriciana in the refrigerator in a food container for up to one day. We do not recommend freezing it.

Reheat the amatriciana in the microwave or saute it in a pan with a tablespoon of oil.

You can also put it in an baking dish, sprinkle with grated pecorino romano cheese and finally gratin it in the oven.

Amatriciana Sauce: Some Variants

Every traditional recipe has many variations, and this happens also for this traditional recipe of pasta Amatriciana, in which the variations are characterized by the addition or replacement of the ingredients according to the traditions of the different Italian regions or simply to your tastes.

Gricia

Many people like cooking Amatriciana sauce without tomatoes. This dish in Italy is called Pasta alla Gricia or Griscia from the name of Grisciano, a village near Amatrice. For more information check out our recipe “Pasta alla Gricia”.

Pasta Amatriciana with Parmigiano

As mentioned above in the authentic amatriciana sauce recipe, pecorino Romano is one of the main ingredients. You can replace it withparmigiano cheese or use half parmigiano and half pecorino romano.

In this case the flavour becomes less strong and tasty (pecorino Romano is a very tasty cheese). It depends on the tastes and the possibility of finding the ingredients.

Amatriciana Sauce with Bacon

Amatriciana sauce is often made with bacon, as is the case with pasta alla carbonara. If only for the easy availability of the ingredient, which is indeed also less expensive than guanciale.

Bacon is less fat then guanciale so add 1 spoonfull of oil to sauté it.

Amatriciana with Garlic or Onion

Many people like to cook guanciale with a clove of garlic or a small onion. This is used a lot in Rome and surroundings. The traditional Amatriciana recipe does’t want any of them so, in the ends, it’s up to you.

Bucatini All’Amatriciana

There are even different opinions on the type of pasta: in addition to spaghetti, Amatriciana pasta is excellent with bucatini. Bucatini all’Amatriciana is a famous dish in Rome but the authentic recipe born in Amatrice is made with spaghetti. So now the choice is yours 😉

Amatriciana Sauce Recipe: History and Curiosities

In the beginning, Pasta Amatriciana was without tomato. Only around 1600 it was imported from America and began to appear in Italian recipes. Nowadays, the “white” version of this famous pasta recipe is called pasta alla Gricia or Grascia (from Grisciano, another little town near Amatrice).

Centuries ago, many shepherds who lived in the mountains of Amatrice, brought in their saddlebags the necessary ingredients for its preparation: pieces of guanciale, pecorino cheese, red hot pepper and dried pasta.

The secret behind a perfect Amatriciana sauce is the fat, the white and slightly pink part of guanciale, which is the main and most important ingredient.

Much appreciated throughout Italy, Amatriciana or Matriciana (as it is called in Rome) has been included in the list of Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali (Traditional Food Products – PAT) of Lazio.

It exists in several variations, but the authentic recipe has been formalized by the municipality of Amatrice in a De. C.O. (Denominazioni Comunali d’Origine) specification.

In 2015 the municipality, in addition, began the path to recognition as a TSG (Traditional Specialty Guaranteed), a mark of origin that protects precisely the traditional productions.

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