Tagliatelle al friggione
A 2-ingredient sauce worth the time investment
Happy Sunday friends! And happy new year! I hope 2025 has been good to you so far. I have had a little unplanned break since returning from London - so thank you for your patience while I have been reacclimatising and settling back into the swing of things.
I’m not sure about you, but I’m not usually one to set New Year’s resolutions. I don’t like the pressure of a resolution, and the often all or nothing mindset that typically goes with it. This year instead, I’ve set out some intentions: be more present, try to let go of things that aren’t serving me, prioritise my health - that sort of thing. So much changes in a year, and I like to think these intentions will adapt and evolve with me as I do, too.
Speaking of things that aren’t serving me - I do have some news. This week I resigned from my job. If you didn’t know already, in addition to pasta making, I have been working in tech and have been on maternity leave this past year. Everything I produce for no regretti spaghetti has been largely done in my free time, and I am excited to say that 2025 is the year where it’ll be my sole focus and my business. It’s exciting and terrifying and I have no idea what the year ahead holds - but it feels like such a positive start, and I’m thrilled to be able to have the opportunity to work for myself.
Onwards and upwards - and with that, onwards to today’s recipe.
Tagliatelle al friggione - a delicious, 2-ingredient sauce and the perfect, vegetarian alternative to ragu. Let’s get into it!
One of my favourite things about travelling is learning about new foods, trying new things, building alternative perspectives on dishes/cuisine/produce and all in all gaining a huge amount of inspiration to take back home to my own kitchen.
When we were in Bologna in December (take me back!), we got to enjoy a plethora of culinary delights that hail from the beautiful Emilia-Romagna region. You may not realise it, but many of the lovely Italian foods we enjoy outside of Italy actually come from this region: Parmigiano Reggiano, prosciutto di Parma, mortadella (the queen), tortellini, ragu alla Bolognese, aceto balsamico - it’s quite the CV if you ask me. From pastas to cheese, cured meats and local fried bread - the food from Bologna and the surrounding region was outstanding.
I mentioned in my December round up that we did a food tasting tour in Bologna (I’ll link it again here for anyone interested), and one of the highlights for me was walking through the streets of the Quadrilatero (an area of street markets right in the historic centre of Bologna), and popping into various shops to pick up a lunch of cured meats, cheese and accompaniments. We took our haul to the oldest osteria in Bologna (Osteria del Sole), ordered a glass of Pignoletto and laid everything we had bought out on our table, ready for lunch. One of those items was friggione.
Friggione is a traditional Bolognese dish comprised of two main ingredients: onions and tomatoes. It’s humble, “peasant” food at its finest, and its beauty lies in the way its cooked - which is slowly, over a low heat, for quite a long time.
The first known recipe dates back to the late 1800s and traditionally it’s served as a side or antipasto - with meats, or more often eaten with some lovely fresh bread, which is how we had it. However our guide Fede told us that nowadays it’s also often served with tagliatelle instead of ragu.
My interest = piqued.
As a side served on some crusty bread, I thought it was delicious. But as a sauce for pasta? Next level. Immediately I was filled with nostalgia for my dad’s pasta with tomato sauce, which like most Med/Middle Eastern parents is made with an abundance of onion. The slick almost greasiness from the olive oil is an essential part of this dish - the texture is jammy, lightly dressing the pasta, with mouthfuls of caramelised onion and tomato nestled between ribbons. The flavour is deep and rich, sweet but savoury. It’s everything I want from a pasta sauce and my idea of the perfect, Sunday cooking project.
The Recipe
Serves 4
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