Pappardelle Pasta with Pancetta and Burrata

I’m so excited to share this pancetta pasta recipe with you! It combines two of my favorite things – pancetta and burrata – into one amazingly creamy pasta sauce. And it comes together in a flash!

Though this isn’t about making a fast dinner. It’s about using great ingredients and preparing them simply, while not over complicating things. And I would totally recommend you make fresh pasta if you can instead of using dried! Even if you haven’t made pasta before, you can do it! I have a step by step fresh egg pasta recipe full of all my tips. Fresh pasta takes time, but it’s easier than you think.

In fact, I came up with this recipe while I was practicing my fresh pasta making in preparation for that post! I had tried a few other sauces (like Arrabbiata Sauce) along the way, and I loved the idea of not only using pasta water in the sauce, but making the sauce from pasta water. I usually have a sauce and then use the pasta water to marry the sauce to the pasta. Here we have pancetta and its rendered fat, some onion and garlic, and pasta water. And it so works!

All the starch in the water combines with the fat from the pancetta and the sauce gets so creamy and yummy. Then add in the burrata and a great sauce goes all the way to amazing. Seriously. I was just trying it out the first time, and with the first bite I had pulled out my notebook and started writing.

I did make it a couple more times before I took my photos, partially because…well it’s good 🙂 and partially to make sure I could recreate it with no problems. And, yeah, the third time I overheated the burrata. Don’t do that! It was still good, but the burrata was chewy instead of creamy. Not good.

The secrets to this sauce are:

• Use plenty of pasta water. Salted pasta water. And let it cook down into a sauce.
• Skip the olive oil. You don’t need it with the pancetta!
• Get the pancetta crispy before you add in the onion. Pancetta needs time to render its fat and crisp up.
• Use fresh herbs! They give the sauce some needed greenness (that’s totally a flavor, right? 🙂 )
• Don’t overheat the burrata! I might have mentioned that a couple of times…
• And have everything ready to go before you start! It goes fast.

– Happy Eating, Annemarie

Print Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Pappardelle Pasta with Pancetta and Burrata

Creamy burrata is tossed with crispy pancetta, chopped herbs, and fresh pappardelle noodles in this quick recipe for pancetta pasta.

Prep Time10 mins

Cook Time15 mins

Total Time25 mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: 4 servings

Author: Just a Little Bit of Bacon

Ingredients

• 10 oz pappardelle pasta
• 4 oz pancetta, diced
• 1/2 lg white onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley
• 2 tbsp fresh chopped chives
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 6 oz burrata cheese
• 1/2 cup freshly shredded parmesan
• kosher salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

• Bring a large pot of water to boil for your pasta. Add a scoop of kosher salt and cook the pasta until it's al dente. If you are making fresh pasta, add it to the water at the same time you put the onion in the skillet. Be sure to scoop out about 2 cups of pasta water before you drain the pasta.
  
• In a large skillet over medium heat, saute the pancetta until it starts to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the onion and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
  
• Add the cooked pasta to the skillet along with 1 cup of pasta water. Bring the water to boil and cook, stirring constantly until the sauce is beginning to come together and coat the pasta, about 1-2 minutes.
  
• Add the parsley, chives, and lemon juice. Cook for 1 minute. The sauce will be creamy and thick.
  
• Take the skillet off the heat. Break up the balls of burrata and add the burrata to the skillet along with the parmesan. Stir to combine. Serve immediately.
  

Notes

• Make sure you don't heat the burrata. Use the heat in the skillet to warm it through. If you get the burrata too hot it will break.
• You can get the sauce done through step 2 before the pasta is finished. Once the pasta is almost done, heat the skillet up again and proceed.

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