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Bucatini all’amatriciana is everything I want from a bowl of pasta: Salty, peppery pancetta, a sauce that clings to every hollow noodle, and a finish of sharp pecorino. Twenty-five minutes start to finish, guanciale is nice, but not required.

A plate of bucatini all'amatriciana topped with tomato sauce, grated cheese, and fresh herbs, with a fork resting on the side of the plate. — Classic bucatini all’amatriciana is a rustic pasta recipe with a hearty tomato sauce and pecorino cheese.

Say it with me: Ama-Tree-Chee-Ana! The Italian word “amatriciana” is as fun to pronounce as the sauce is to eat — a punchy, pork-deepened tomato sauce that’s one of Rome’s four essential pastas. I’ve spent years perfecting the others, too: my classic carbonara and cacio e pepe are other Roman pasta recipes I keep coming back to.

Before you start

Amatriciana is a meat-forward sauce, not a tomato sauce with pork floating in it. Too much tomato and the pancetta disappears. This recipe is flexibly built around what you have: guanciale, pancetta or bacon.
A wide skillet — not a saucepan — means more surface area so the sauce reduces and thickens in about 15 minutes.
Don’t rush the rendering. I cook it low and slow until it’s deep brown and crisp — that fat is the flavor base of the sauce.

Italian purists say it’s a MUST to pair this hearty tomato sauce with spaghetti or even better, bucatini. Bucatini is a type of long pasta shaped like thick spaghetti. The noodles have a hollow center, which provides more surface area (inside and out) for the sauce to permeate.

But there are no such rules in my kitchen — eat what you like! Amatriciana sauce is also perfect with sturdy short pasta shapes, like rigatoni or penne. Their ridges help the sauce cling to the pasta.

Three ingredients worth getting right

Ingredients for bucatini all' amatriciana sauce on a tray, including pancetta cubes, crushed red chili, canned tomatoes, garlic , onion and grated pecorino cheese.

The pork: Guanciale — cured, peppery pork jowl — is the traditional choice in authentic amatriciana sauce, but it’s hard to track down outside Italian markets or a good butcher counter. Pancetta is what I reach for most. Ask the deli counter to slice it from a 1/2-inch slab rather than the thin pre-sliced packages, so you can cut it into plump cubes that render evenly. Thick-sliced unsmoked bacon works too. It won’t have guanciale’s peppery bite, but it crisps and renders fat the same way, and it’s in every grocery store in the country. Use whatever you can actually get your hands on — the technique matters more than which cut you start with.
Canned tomatoes: Amatriciana is a gutsy, rustic sauce — it should have some texture from coarse tomatoes and bits of pancetta. One 28-ounce can of whole or crushed tomatoes is the correct ratio of sauce to pork. If you’re using whole tomatoes, crush them by hand in the pan as they cook rather than running them through a blender.
Pecorino Romano: This sharp, salty sheep’s-milk cheese is the key to the dish, the same way it works in cacio e pepe. Skip the pre-shredded bag — buy a chunk and grate it yourself with a rasp grater.

Let’s cook the sauce and toss with the bucatini

1. Heat the pancetta gently to render the fat. It’s worth it to be patient. Render the fat slowly over medium heat until the cubes turn deep brown and crisp at the edges.
2. It’s tempting to do this quickly over high heat, but the slow melt of the fat is what softens the pork on the inside, and creates a crackling exterior.

3. Stir in the onion and another tablespoon of olive oil. The rendered fat alone isn’t quite enough to keep things moving without scorching the brown bits on the bottom of the pan.
4. Cook until the onion is soft, then add the garlic, salt, chili and pepper. Garlic burns fast — add it last, once everything else has had time to soften. It only needs about 30 seconds before it’s fragrant.

5. Turn the heat up and pour in the wine, scraping up those browned bits as it bubbles — that’s where a lot of the sauce’s depth comes from.
6. Let it boil until most of the liquid disappears. You want the raw edge of the wine cooked off, not just diluted by the tomatoes.

7. Add the tomatoes and stir well, working in anything still clinging to the bottom of the pan — that’s flavor you don’t want to waste!
8. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and the oil starts to separate slightly at the edges — that’s the sauce telling you it’s ready, regardless of the clock.
9. Add the drained pasta straight to the skillet with the sauce and toss over medium heat for a minute, loosening with a splash of reserved pasta water if needed. Pour a glass of red wine and buon appetito!