Amatriciana sauce is one of the easiest recipe to make with only two ingredients.

If you want to know how to make amatriciana sauce the original way, you’re in the right place! Even though this is a simple recipe that calls for only 4 ingredients, the quality of what you use is key to making it a great dish. This might seem obvious, but if you use bacon instead of guanciale, or low quality tomatoes and cheese the flavors change drastically.

Amatriciana sauce: origins

Amatrice is a small town near Rieti, in the central Appennino. This recipe comes from this small village (Amatriciana-> from Amatrice).  Nestled in the mountains, Amatrice has a long traditions of shepherds. Shepherds with their herds would go as far as the Roman countryside during transhumance. They would carry with them simple food they could cook and eat in no time. Cheese and cured meat were a great source of energy and protein, and dried pasta was easy to carry with them.

The recipe was originally without tomatoes, and it’s called “gricia”.  Then, when tomatoes spread in Europe, it was added to the recipe to create what we now know as the traditional Amatriciana recipe.

Best ingredients for Amatriciana sauce

If you want to taste the best amatriciana, you should definitely look for the best ingredients.

• Guanciale: the cheek of the pork cured with pepper salt and spices. There are a lot of producers in Italy that make a great guanciale, you can easily find it in specialty stores like Eataly. I would not recommend to use bacon, at least if you want to savor the real deal. The taste is definitely different and more bland than guanciale.
• Tomatoes: you can use san marzano. I would try to find the best you can get your hands on, hopefully from a local farmer. If you cannot find fresh you can use peeled canned tomatoes. You may also try a very high quality passata (if you make your own like me it’s even better).
• Pecorino:  there are a lot of pecorino cheese, they might be all good, but I would try to buy the one from Umbria or Lazio. The cheese called Pecorino romano is ok, but it’s very salty if compared with the one from Amatrice, but it’s good too. I do not recommend to use parmigiano (let alone parmesan).

Amatriciana is mix of specific flavors, if you change one, the taste changes a lot.

I usually buy ingredients that comes directly from Amatrice. The small town was hit by a terrible earthquake in 2016 and many people abandoned their houses. However there are still many people who want to rebuild the community and still keep their activities alive. They have created a small shop on line where you can buy their produce. I guess Eataly also sells many products that come from the area. So if you want to taste a great dish and help some people recover from a very devastating event, that’s a good way!

Amatriciana Health facts and tips

Amatriciana is not has bad as you may think.

• Fats: Even though guanciale contains a lot of fat, the amount you are using is definitely not relevant. Moreover there is no additional oil in the recipe and you can also remove some of the excess fat while cooking the recipe. Pecorino is made from pastured raised sheep, that eats wild herbs and plants.
• Cheese is bad: actually it’s not. Pecorino cheese as we said, comes from high quality milk from animals that only eats wild plants. It’s rich in high quality protein and, since it’s fermented, it contains probiotics that are good for our microbiome. Lastly you only use 25gr per person, so it’s definitely not an amount that you should be concerned of.
• Fibers and antioxidant: I usually like to use more tomatoes than the standard recipe. This way you’ll get more nutrients, fibers and antioxidant and do not impact the flavor of the dish.

Ingredients to make Amatriciana recipe

• 400gr of spaghettoni
• 100gr of guanciale
• 100gr of pecorino
• 500gr of tomatoes
• salt

How to make Amatriciana sauce

Step 1
Bring a large pot of water to boil, add a tablespoon of coarse salt. When it comes to a boil, add the pasta.
Cut the guanciale into fine strips and cook it on low on a cast iron skillet or a non stick pan. When the guanciale is starting to turn golden brown, remove it from the pan along with its grease and set aside.

Step 2
In the same pan add the tomatoes. If you use peeled canned tomatoes, you may want to crush them with your hands before cooking. Add a pinch of salt and mix.
Cook for a few minutes on low, until the pasta is ready.

Step 3
When the pasta is ready, set aside some of the cooking water then drain. Add the guanciale back to the pan with the tomatoes and then add the pasta. Mix well, then add the grated pecorino and serve hot.