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    Home » Nuts and Starches

    Mezze Maniche Pasta with Walnut Sauce

    Published: Jan 18, 2025 Modified: Jan 18, 2025 Author: Alan Bergo

    Jump to Recipe Jump to Video

    An ode to fall, winter and the nut cracking season, this simple Italian pasta with walnut sauce is a perfect example of the ingredient-focused, seasonal cooking I live for. It's a study in less is more, and how high quality ingredients can really make a dish. Nutty, rich, and elegant in its simplicity, even if you never make it there's valuable lessons to glean from reading about the process.

    Mezze maniche with a creamy walnut pasta sauce.

    At the recent collaboration dinner I did with Hyacinth restaurant in St. Paul this pasta got more compliments than anything else on the menu. It was also the cheapest dish we served. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere for me.

    A Recipe for Mezze Maniche and Tube-Shaped Pasta

    I like this sauce best with a bite-sized, hollow pasta like ziti, penne, rigatoni, or, arguably the best I've had so far: mezze maniche. Hollow pasta just holds the sauce better than long noodles. With so few ingredients, this is the type of recipe where you want the best pasta you can buy.

    An infographic showing mezze maniche pasta made with a bronze extruded die with a close up image showing the rough surface of the noodles for catching the sauce.
    Mezze maniche translates to "half-sleeves".

    Bronze die cut pasta is expensive, but the rough surface holds sauces better than cheaper pasta. Mancini brand has quickly become a professional chef favorite, but Rusticella d'Abruzzo is good too.

    Chef's Tips & Variations

    I'm using black walnuts and it's a novel way to use them in savory dishes, but regular English walnuts are fine too. Using white walnuts or butternuts would be a luxury. You can also use this recipe to make a pistachio pasta sauce-the perfect sauce for squash or sweet potato ravioli.

    Whole black walnut (Juglans nigra) halves next to whole butternut (Juglans cinerea) halves on a baking tray showing the difference in their shapes.
    Butternuts (left) and black walnuts (right).

    When I worked for Milanese Chef William Salvadore I remember making a nearly identical mushroom-walnut sauce for pasta using dried porcini. Instructions for making it are in the recipe notes.

    Dried MN porcini mushrooms ground with a mortar and pestle.
    Dried porcini, coarsley ground in a mortar and pestle.

    The nutty taste of the walnuts blends well with the mushrooms and is one of the few embellishments that can work here.

    How to Make A Simple, Creamy Walnut Sauce for Pasta

    There's a surprising number of ways to make Italian walnut sauces-more than I have room to discuss. Some are served hot like this recipe, some are tossed with filled pasta after it's cooked, like the Ligurian pansotti con salsa di noci in the images below.

    A bowl of room temperature walnuts sauce.
    A bowl of creamy walnut sauce made with dried bread.
    Tossing filled pansotti pasta with walnut sauce.
    Tossing filled pansotti pasta with the walnut sauce.
    Pansotti pasta served with salsa di noci.
    The finished pasta sauce is creamy and light.

    My favorite version is the simplest, made with nothing more than walnuts, water, garlic, wine, cheese, and a spoonful of cream. But, with so few ingredients the technique becomes more important and there's subtle details to pay attention to. Think of it more like pasta with walnuts than a walnut cream sauce, if that makes any sense.

    To make the dish, first the walnuts are ground by hand in a mortar and pestle. Food processors won't work here but you could crush the nuts with the back of a pan. You're aiming for a combination of coarse and finely ground walnuts.

    Crushing walnuts with an olive wood mortar and pestle.
    Crushing walnuts in a mortar and pestle.
    A close up image of a spoon filled with crushed walnuts showing the perfect consistency and texture to make walnut sauce.
    The nuts should be ground to a coarse flour.

    While the pasta's cooking, melt unsalted butter in a pan with a sliced garlic clove. it's important that the garlic is sliced as minced garlic can burn too quickly. The ground walnuts are added and cooked until they're the perfectly golden brown, then deglazed with a splash of wine.

    Melting butter in a stainless steel saute pan with garlic.
    Starting the garlic and butter in a cold pan.
    Adding ground crushed walnuts to a pan of garlic and butter.
    Add the ground walnuts.
    Stirring a pan of ground walnut and garlic cooking in butter.
    Cook slowly until golden.
    Deglazing a pan of cooking walnuts and garlic with dry white wine.
    Deglazing the pan with white wine.

    A drizzle of cream, water, and cooked pasta are added to the pan. The pasta's cooked slightly less than al-dente so it can be simmered in the sauce to finish, which is one of the secrets.

    Adding a drizzle of heavy cream to pan of walnuts cooked with garlic.
    Adding a small amount of cream.
    Adding water to a pan in order to finish cooking pasta.
    Adding regular water to finish cooking the pasta. Pasta water can make it too salty.
    Simmering pasta in a creamy walnut sauce in a pan. a
    Simmering the pasta until al dente.

    When the pasta's tender and has soaked up the sauce, add a small handful of good parmesan cheese, mix, taste and serve. Garnish with a few coarsely chopped toasted walnuts to emphasize the theme. Parsley, herbs or aesthetic garnishes are unnecessary and detract from the simplicity.

    A finished pan of mezze maniche pasta with walnut sauce showing the perfect consistency and that the pan is nearly dry.
    The pan should be nearly dry at the end.
    Adding a handful of parmesan cheese to a pan of mezze maniche pasta with walnut sauce.
    Adding parigiano cheese off the heat.
    Garnishing a bowl of finished pasta with walnut sauce with freshly cracked black walnuts.
    Garnish with toasted walnuts.

    When done correctly, the sauce should cling to the pasta. It should not be soupy or wet as most of us Americans are used to. If you've ever eaten pasta in Italy, the light coating of sauce that's just enough, but not too much, will bring back memories.

    The finished mezze maniche pasta with walnut sauce.

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    Mezze maniche pasta with Italian walnut sauce served in a bowl garnished wtih parmigiano cheese and walnuts.
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    Mezze Maniche Pasta with Walnut Sauce

    Serves one as a light entrée or lunch, or two people as a first course.
    Prep Time5 minutes mins
    Cook Time15 minutes mins
    Total Time20 minutes mins
    Course: Appetizer, Main Course, Pasta
    Cuisine: Italian
    Keyword: mezze maniche recipe, walnut sauce recipe
    Servings: 2 servings
    Calories: 462kcal
    Author: Alan Bergo
    Cost: 10

    Equipment

    • 1 10 inch stainless steel saute pan or similar
    • 1 3-4 quart pasta pot

    Ingredients

    • 1 small clove garlic thinly sliced or minced
    • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
    • ⅓ cup water plus more as needed (don’t use pasta water)
    • Splash of dry white wine
    • 3 oz dried pasta scant cup of penne, ziti, etc (weighing the pasta is ideal for the right result here)
    • 3 tablespoons ground walnuts, raw & un-toasted
    • 2 tablespoons heavy cream
    • ¼ cup finely ground parmesan cheese, separated like parmigiano reggiano or grana padano
    • Kosher salt to taste
    • A few toasted coarsely chopped walnuts to garnish
    • Extra parmesan cheese to garnish

    Instructions

    • Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and undercook it slightly. You will finish cooking the pasta by simmering it in the walnut sauce.
    • In a cold 10 inch saute pan, warm the butter and garlic and cook on medium heat until the edges of the garlic turn golden. Add the crushed walnuts and stir to mix with the butter.
    • Cook, stirring occasionally until the walnuts start to turn golden. Add the wine to the pan and cook off.
    • Add the pasta, water and cream to the pan and simmer over medium-high heat. Simmer the pasta in the sauce until it’s tender and tastes good to you.
    • If the pan threatens to dry out add another splash of water. Resist the urge to add pasta cooking water as it can become too salty.
    • When the pasta’s tender, add half the parmesan and stir to combine, then remove from the heat.
    • Transfer the pasta to a warm serving bowl, garnish with additional parmesan and toasted walnuts and serve immediately. Resist the urge to garnish with fresh chopped parsley, chives, or anything else and appreciate the rustic simplicity of your perfectly executed pasta.
    • When made correctly the pasta should be perfectly coated with sauce, with nearly none left in the pan. Unlike many other pastas, you should not be able to drizzle spoonfuls of the sauce from the pan on top of the pasta.

    Video

    Notes

    Gorgonzola Walnut Sauce for Ravioli, etc 

    Instead of parmesan, add 1 oz crumbled gorgonzola to the pan and cook it for a moment at the end so it blends into the sauce. 

    Mushroom Walnut Sauce 

    To make the dried porcini mushroom & walnut sauce, substitute 1-2 tablespoons dried porcini mushrooms for 1 tablespoon of the walnuts. 

    Nutrition

    Serving: 4oz | Calories: 462kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 12g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.5g | Cholesterol: 58mg | Sodium: 229mg | Potassium: 208mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 682IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 151mg | Iron: 1mg
    « Black Poplar or Velvet Pioppino Mushroom
    Slow Baked Italian Sausage and Mushrooms »

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Elizabeth Blair

      January 18, 2025 at 3:40 pm

      Your recipes are always intriguing, Alan. But I often can't manage the complexity. How about doing a few simple recipes for those dried or frozen mushrooms we have on hand from last year? especially hens. but also COW, which I dried and pulzerized.

      From A Challenged Cook.

      Reply
      • Alan Bergo

        January 18, 2025 at 4:07 pm

        Thanks for the suggestions.

        Reply
    2. Amy

      January 18, 2025 at 11:04 am

      Keen to try this- love nuts and the elegant simplicity. One basic Q- is it pasta water we are adding or fresh water? Commonly it’s pasta water for starchiness and emulsification, but want to clarify since, as you say, in such a simple recipe the details matter! Thanks

      Reply
      • Alan Bergo

        January 18, 2025 at 11:16 am

        Yes the details matter, a spoonful of pasta water is usually great, and you could add a little bit here, but in the second to last step I mention not to use pasta cooking water. The reason is that the amount of water you’re adding is much than a spoonful, which can make the pasta too salty.

        Reply
    3. Gilbert White

      January 18, 2025 at 10:28 am

      Takes me on a tangent to Sondrio food.
      Pizzoccheri, which refers to buckwheat, buckwheat noodles, and typical mets using them. In the ski areas north of Milan, popular cold weather food. The first times I ate the dish I thought the tough dark colored flat noodles were dried beef like jerky. The greens were Swiss chard? Could substitute. Recipes also can include funghi.

      Reply
      • Alan Bergo

        January 18, 2025 at 10:51 am

        Hey Gilbert. Love buckwheat. I taught class on making the pizzocherri Valtellina with cabbage and alpine cheese that’s baked like a casserole a few years ago. It’s interesting to notice the Germanic influence on dishes as you go north.

        Reply

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    Chef Alan Bergo

    HI, I'm Alan: James Beard Award-winning Chef, Author, Show Host and Forager. I've been writing about cooking wild food here for over a decade. Let me show you why foraging is the most delicious thing you'll ever do.

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