Pappardelle
Wide-ribboned, long and flat, pappardelle pasta is most typically served with a robust ragù or some similarly hearty sauce. Browse our pappardelle recipes and treat your taste buds with an intense-flavoured Italian feast.
Pappardelle Pasta – Big In Size, Big In Flavour
Long, flat, and very wide, pappardelle pasta has a shape and texture that go particularly well with robust, hearty dishes. As a result, pappardelle recipes are frequently described with terms such as comfort food, richly-flavoured, even decadent. The wide and porous pappardelle ribbons curl nicely around one’s fork and are good for catching thick tomato sauces and meaty ragùs in the same forkful.
In appearance, pappardelle is fairly similar to that other ribbon-like egg pasta, tagliatelle, only wider. Pappardelle strands are two to three centimeters in width, which makes them one of the biggest-surfaced pasta varieties this side of lasagna. Note that when egg-based dough is used to make the pasta (as is the tradition), the product may be called pappardelle all’uovo in Italian.
Origin Of Pappardelle
Whereas the narrower tagliatelle originated in the Emilia-Romagna region, pappardelle belongs to its Southern neighbour, Tuscany. The nature of Tuscan cuisine goes partly to explain why pappardelle so often appears in the kind of richly-flavoured and meaty recipes it is best known for.
Pappardelle pasta dates back hundreds of years, probably to the 14th century at least. Unsurprisingly it has long ago spread from its native Tuscany to all over Italy and beyond. The name of the pasta can be derived from the Italian verb pappare, or Tuscan dialect papparsi, both of which mean “to gobble up” – the deliciousness of pappardelle recipes and the fact that pappardelle is rather easy to eat quickly (albeit messily) undoubtedly explain the name.
Tuscan Ragùs And Other Pappardelle Recipes
Tuscan cooking is known for its hearty, usually meaty recipes, which is reflected in the most common pappardelle recipes. Robust winter-time favourites and mouth-watering comfort food dishes constitute the majority of pappardelle recipes. Among them you will find lots of slow-simmered ragùs (meat-based pasta sauces), which are, admittedly, the perfect accompaniments for pappardelle pasta. Cooking with pappardelle need not be a meat feast though – mushroom-based sauces for example are another classic companion for pappardelle.
Whether you are cooking with or without meat, intense flavours are the key to the perfect pappardelle dish. And if your recipe of choice calls for tomatoes, Mutti’s 100% Italian, perfectly sun-ripened tomatoes are guaranteed to provide the intense flavour your pappardelle pasta craves.