PASTA · LAZIO

Amatriciana, and the village that swears it’s theirs.

Name: Amatriciana, and the village that swears it’s theirs.
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 400 g BUCATINI; 150 g GUANCIALE; 400 g SAN MARZANO TOMATOES; 80 g PECORINO ROMANO DOP; 50 ml DRY WHITE WINE; KOSHER SALT

MAY 22, 2026· 3 MIN READ · ★★★★☆ 4.8

A 35-minute sauce that has started actual political incidents in Italian parliament. Guanciale, tomato, pecorino. Onion is optional; garlic is heresy.

INGREDIENTS

What you actually need.

Serves

BUCATINI 400 g
GUANCIALE 150 g
SAN MARZANO TOMATOES 400 g
PECORINO ROMANO DOP 80 g
DRY WHITE WINE 50 ml
KOSHER SALT —

NOTA BENE

San Marzano DOP makes a real difference. Otherwise use whole quality tinned tomatoes, crushed by hand — never blended, never passata.

METHOD

6 steps, and one will define the dish.

Render the guanciale.

Cut into batons, render slowly in a dry pan until the edges are crisp. Set aside.

Deglaze with white wine.

Pour off all but a couple tablespoons of fat. Add wine, scrape the pan, reduce by half.

Add the tomatoes.

Crush the San Marzano by hand. Simmer 20 minutes — no garlic, no onion, this is Amatrice not Rome.

Cook the pasta one minute under.

Bucatini in salted water. Pull at one minute under al dente.

Finish in the sauce.

Pasta and a ladle of pasta water. Toss hard. Off the heat, fold in the pecorino.

Plate, top with more pecorino.

And the reserved crisp guanciale on top.

WHY IT WORKS — THE SCIENCE

The guanciale fat is the entire foundation.

Amatrice is a village in the province of Rieti, in the deep Lazio countryside, which before the 2016 earthquake had just over 2,600 inhabitants and one pasta. Today that pasta is a symbol — culinary, political, and in some sense a statement of survival.

The amatriciana sauce has a municipal designation. The Town of Amatrice has filed the official recipe: bucatini, guanciale, San Marzano, pecorino romano, dry white wine, optional chilli. No onion, no garlic, no added oil.

The great onion schism

In Rome, amatriciana is often made with half an onion. In Amatrice, this is considered a Roman variation — not an error, but not the original recipe. The version without onion is drier, sharper, more direct. With onion it becomes sweeter and rounder.

“If you add the onion it’s not wrong — it’s just another recipe. Like saying the Lamborghini with air conditioning isn’t a Miura. Technically right. Practically different.”— GIANCARLO VISSANI, CHEF

Why bucatini

Bucatino is a tube. The sauce gets inside. When you bite, hot tomato shoots out. This is a feature, not a bug. The pasta must be robust enough to survive vigorous tossing without snapping — spaghetti can substitute in emergencies, but it misses that moment of surprise.

The wine step

The white wine is non-negotiable in the Amatrice recipe. It deglaze the pan after the guanciale renders, lifts the fond, and adds an acidity that balances the fat. Use a dry, neutral white — no oak, no residual sugar. It cooks off in 90 seconds but leaves a structural note.