11 Traditional Italian Pasta Sauces

If you mention “marinara” to an Italian, they’ll likely think of a pizza base, and if you double down on your claim that it’s a pasta sauce, you’ll be met with disdain. In an interview with the Financial Times, food historian and University of Parma economic history professor, Alberto Grandi, stated that Italians have no faith in the future, which is why they reinvent the past — specifically through their number one identity, cuisine. The sentiment is reflected in the Twitter account, Italians Mad at Food, which is entirely dedicated to trash-talking international attempts at recreating their national dishes (namely, spaghetti with meatballs or alfredo sauce).

You’ll notice when traveling up and down the boot-shaped peninsula that certain regions cultivate certain sauces more than others for cultural and climatic reasons. For example, the cold, mountainous north emphasizes cuisine with creams, and the sunny, coastal south consumes seafood regularly. Meanwhile, the Tuscans, tucked away on the mainland, love a hearty meat-based dish.

Naturally, enjoying certain styles of sauce isn’t restricted to your province. What is off-limits is matching the wrong pasta shape with the wrong sauce, and the most gastronomically inclined won’t skip a beat at turning up their noses at a mistaken combination. There’s also a formula to wine pairing that goes beyond red with meat and white with fish, which, when done correctly, enhances the flavor of both the drink and food and makes any meal eaten off a plastic plate feel gourmet. You, too, can wine and dine like an Italian by sticking to the tried-and-true classics.

The history and controversy of carbonara sauce are about as rich as its creamy texture. Ubiquitous with Roman cuisine, the robust plate was rumored to be created for the hardworking “carbonari,” or coal burners, who needed energy to push through their physically rigorous day. However, another disputed theory claims that American soldiers stationed in Rome invented the sauce, who threw their meat and dairy rations into their pasta for extra protein and pizzazz.

One thing that everyone can agree upon is the sauce’s main ingredients. Spaghetti, raw egg yolks, pecorino cheese, and pancetta with a light dusting of black pepper are all you need to achieve the dish’s smoky, unmatched flavor. Romans will argue guanciale is the only acceptable meat to use, but for the rest of us, that’s optional. Other spaghetti-like pasta, such as bucatini or tagliatelle, works, but avoid short shapes at all costs.

If you’re feeling adventurous, try Giada de Laurentiis’ secret carbonara seasoning tip — just don’t tell the Italians. They have just as much of a hard time swallowing deviations from the dish’s traditional contents as they do the fact that Americans might have created it. But a quick look at the first published recipe for carbonara in a 1954 issue of La Cucina Italiana magazine highlights unorthodox ingredients like parsley and gruyere cheese, which goes to show that everything is fluid, even beloved pasta dishes.

Pomodoro sauce’s spicy sibling, arrabbiata, blends simplicity with intricate flavor. The red sauce with a kick stems from the Lazio region and brings to center stage Italy’s fresh, quality ingredients. All you need to master this pasta dish, meaning “angry” in Italian, are peeled tomatoes, oil, garlic cloves, and chili pepper.

It may still be a simple red sauce, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a correct pasta to pair it with. Penne (or its baby version, pennette) is the go-to option as its ridges hold the chunky sauce best. If you reach for smooth spaghetti, you’ll risk having the bulky contents slide off the pasta and onto your plate, where you’ll be forced to scoop up with bread in the classic Italian “scarpetta” technique.

Legend has it that the sauce stems from a Roman trattoria in the early 1900s that lacked the proper ingredients for amatriciana, so it whipped this masterpiece up instead. Mouths watered, eyes teared, and people fell in love. Today, the pasta condiment is widely used across the country, often paired with red wine to balance its bold flavors.

Picture crisp linen clothes, sun-kissed skin, and breathtaking coastal views. What’s missing in the equation? A savory plate of spaghetti alle vongole, the quintessential go-to meal across Italy on sultry summer days along the Mediterranean. And while “vongole” sounds fancy, it really just means clams in Italian. The white sauce is, however, considered more upscale than some other simple tomato-based alternatives.

The first recipe for this sauce surfaced in an 1839 cookbook written by Ippolito Cavalcanti, Duke of Buonvicino. In it, he mentioned five simple ingredients: fresh clams, spaghetti, olive oil, parsley, and garlic. Nearby Naples quickly adopted the dish as its own, preserving the original recipe except for a dose of white wine, now ubiquitous in the sauce.

Pairing vongole with anything other than spaghetti is just one of those unwritten rules, like drinking cappuccino past lunchtime. Cheese with fish is strictly off-limits, too, so if you’re used to sprinkling some parmesan over your pasta, consider only doing so with this sauce in the comfort of your home and away from judgmental eyes. Naturally, fish-based dishes call for white or rosé wines, and this briny clam sauce complements Vermentino’s earthy and fruity notes harmoniously. If you can’t get your hands on a bottle, any dry white wine (Pinot Grigio, for example) provides a pleasant alternative.

If you’re deciding on what to eat in 24 hours in Rome, most people will direct you to carbonara or even cacio e pepe. However, amatriciana is the unsung hero of the Eternal City. The smoky, robust sauce is as mouthwatering as its local competitors and fairly easy to make.

A variant of tomato sauce, it throws in guanciale to the mix for an added meaty component that’s luscious and satisfying. The complete list of the sauce’s ingredients includes peeled tomatoes (bonus points if they’re from San Marzano), guanciale (or, again, pancetta), chili and black pepper, and pecorino cheese. The traditional recipe calls for bucatini, but any spaghetti variant works great. What’s key in the preparation of the dish is throwing your pasta into the saucepan for a few extra minutes at the end to really soak up the flavor. Pair it with a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo or Sangiovese red wine to accentuate the sauce’s umami zest.

Though Italy’s capital steals the credit, you can thank the small village of Amatrice, about two hours north of the city, for this savory sauce exists. There, local shepherds fueled their long days under the sun with the sauce for centuries, but it wasn’t until tomatoes were introduced to Italy around the 1700s that the amatriciana we know today was born.

Yet another iconic Roman pasta sauce, cacio e pepe is one of those dishes that redefines simplicity with sophistication. Cacio e pepe calls for a simple, classic recipe that’s directly translated to “sheep’s milk cheese and pepper.” All you’ll need to create the legendary plate is pecorino cheese along with bucatini-shaped pasta and black peppercorn. Despite the basic list of ingredients, it’s rather challenging to perfect the balance between cheese and cooking water. When mastered, the creamy texture, often referred to as “cremina,” will be as gratifying as the tangy taste.

Today, we associate quality Italian cuisine with elegance. However, you can thank centuries-old Italian shepherds for inventing the popular sauce. It’s said that they reached for its cheap, transportable ingredients as they were light on the stomach and didn’t spoil easily. The black pepper helped them stay warm on chilly evenings, while the carbohydrates gave them much-needed energy after a hard day’s work. You probably won’t find yourself laboring in a pasture, but you still have every right to enjoy the dish that Anthony Bourdain in an episode of ‘No Reservations’ proclaimed “could be the greatest thing in the history of the world” (via BBC).

Living in the shadow of its more popular sibling, spaghetti alle vongole, pasta allo scoglio is worth just as much hype. Its name might be a mouthful, but you can just as easily say pasta with shellfish because those are the contents you’ll find in this fishy sister sauce.

Getting technical, “scoglio” does not translate to the sauce’s seafood ingredients but rather to “rocky coastline,” where they’re found. Some argue that the name instead refers to the small rocks along the shore that Italian fisherman collected and threw into the cooking pot with the food to rattle off the still-alive sea creatures from their shells.

Pasta allo scoglio is more complex than spaghetti alle vongole. It includes clams, but also mussels, prawns, and squid, and its essential cherry tomato ingredient gives the whole entree a red tint that’s distinctly different from its clam-only counterpart. One thing that is the same? Only spaghetti-shaped pasta styles are fair game with this dish. To level up your meal, reach for a floral, fruity white wine that balances the plate’s acidity while complementing the sweetness of the tomatoes.

Pesto is an essential part of Ligurian culture but is loved across Italy. It’s a pasta sauce, but it’s also a panino spread, fish sauce, vegetable relish — the list goes on. There are no rules about what foods you can pair with versatile pesto, only with how you make it, which requires some elbow grease. The name stems from “pestare,” meaning to pound, which is exactly what you’ll have to do to the ingredients to achieve its traditional rustic texture.

The people of Genoa have been pounding basil, pine nuts, olive oil, parmesan, and garlic since the 16th century, hence the sauce’s classic name, pesto alla Genovese. However, there are some modern-day variations of the sauce that are Italian-approved. To start, if you travel down to Sicily, you’ll find the variant, pesto alla trapanese, which swaps pine nuts for almonds. The island is also home to pesto agli agrumi, containing all the same ingredients as trapanese, with a dash of lemon zest ideal for seafood-based dishes. Meanwhile, red pesto adds sundried tomatoes, infusing a smoky and sweet flavor to the typically fresh and nutty sauce.

To savor pesto to the fullest, make sure to grab a spiral-shaped pasta that will absorb its rich juices the best. Gemelli, fusilli, or trofie work best, but farfalle (shaped like bow ties) will do the trick, too.

The most famous of all, pomodoro (or tomato) sauce, defines Italian cuisine with its simplicity and quality. While a well-made pomodoro sauce will blow your tastebuds away, the preparation behind it is deceptively easy. There’s no “correct” recipe per se, but the general gist is peeled tomatoes (sweet, low-acidic San Marzano ones work best), onion, garlic cloves, olive oil, and a dash of salt and basil leaves for added flavor.

Digging deeper into the country’s history and heritage, you’ll find that this sauce hasn’t always taken center stage. Tomatoes aren’t native to the land (they were imported from Latin America in the 1500s), and while they grow in Italian soil splendidly, they were ironically considered poisonous and used as ornamental plants for about three centuries. Once the Southern Italians realized their delectable potential, it was game over. They’ve been used in all types of dishes — especially pasta — ever since.

Don’t save your red wine for the meaty ragù. Pairing wine with pomodoro sauce is highly recommended, as the acidity of the wine and tomatoes balance each other out tastefully. Particularly, a fruity and earthy Chianti will bring out the elements of the sweet tomatoes, basil, and garlic, enriching the flavor profile of the dish.

You might assume spaghetti and meatballs is an Italian dish, but the reality is anything but. In Italy, pasta is consumed as a “primo,” or first entree, while meat is eaten as a “secondo,” meaning the two foods will never touch. The next-best thing you’ll get is ragù, a meaty red sauce made in a variety of ways.

The most famous ragù sauce, Bolognese, is prepared differently in the land of “la Dolce Vita” than in the U.S. For example, the tomato-to-meat ratio of this Bologna-native sauce is far higher in America. In Italy, there are so few tomatoes (about one tablespoon maximum) that the sauce appears more brown than red. Americans also tend to rush through the cooking process; however, the minced meat must be simmered for at least two hours to attain its signature creamy texture, along with milk and “soffritto,” a trifecta of carrots, celery, and onion, and served over tagliatelle, always.

The people of Naples have beef with Bologna over who created the sauce first. Their more basic adaptation skips the soffritto and milk and sticks with the meat and tomato paste, resulting in a saucier, less creamy result. Like most pasta sauces, the history of ragù is murky, and it’s unclear which region officially started making it first. All that’s certain is that provinces across Italy have since created their own versions of the hearty and rustic medley.

This simple but indulgent white concoction consisting of milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper is used more as a base than a topping, like most other sauces. You’ll find it in oven-cooked pasta dishes like lasagna and cannelloni, where its creamy texture helps keep the meal moist while its adhesive qualities hold all the ingredients together. Many Americans tend to replace béchamel with ricotta in lasagna, but experts (and Italians) say that’s a mistake. Béchamel’s delicate qualities make for a light and luxurious pasta dish as opposed to ricotta’s heavy richness.

Béchamel’s origins are a topic of debate, and to date, France claims it as one of its five “mother” sauces. Though its name is undoubtedly French, it’s said that the silky sauce was actually invented in Renaissance-era Tuscany, where locals referred to it as “glue sauce” due to its sticky consistency. Catherine de Medici’s chefs introduced the sauce to the French after she married King Henry II in the 16th century. Over a century later, béchamel’s first recorded recipe was published in a French cookbook written by François Pierre de la Varenne, where lore says he named it after Louis de Béchamel.

Puttanesca sauce is an Italian pasta dish with a fascinating story (dare we say, saucy). It’s all in the name, which in wholesome words means “lady of the night” in Italian. The sultry sauce dates back to World War II, and while Romans claim it as their own, most historians affirm it was created in Naples first.

Legend has it that the effortlessly whippable concoction of tomatoes, chili peppers, capers, anchovies, and olives provided the prostitutes with a fast-prepared meal in between their busy roster of clients. It’s more likely that the name stems from the fact that the dish is super aromatic (take that information as you will).

The point of puttanesca sauce is to have a highly umami-enriched flavor, so don’t be ashamed to go all out with your ingredients. Your palate will agree that the more, the merrier. The fruity, structured profile of Nero d’Avola red wine balances the bold, spicy flavors of the dish and will make every mouthful that much more delicious.