Sugo all’Amatriciana (sauce Amatriciana) is a classic Roman tomato-based sauce that includes guanciale (cured pork jowl) and Pecorino Romano cheese. The guanciale is cooked until crisp and the rendered fat helps create the delicious porky flavor base of the sauce. The salty Pecorino Romano cheese adds flavor and creaminess. What sets this sauce apart from some other traditional red sauces is that the tomatoes are very lightly cooked, which makes the tomato flavor lighter and fresher than a long-stewed tomato sauce.
In this recipe I stay (mostly) true to the original by keeping both ingredients and cook time minimal. I also reached out to Senior Contributing Food Editor Sheela Prakash, our resident Mediterranean expert, for advice. She told me that she had a “killer Amatriciana” at Evan Funke’s Felix Trattoria in Los Angeles. She said his version was very pork-forward and served with rigatoni. I kept that in mind when developing this recipe.
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