Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Tiny Meatballs (Maccheroni alla Chitarra con le Pallottine)

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All Americans know and love the Italian-American classic spaghetti and meatballs. Less known, however, is this exquisite traditional recipe of homemade spaghetti alla chitarra pasta served in a luscious, slow-cooked tomato and meat sauce with teeny meatballs. Spaghetti alla chitarra with tiny meatballs is a glorious preparation from Teramo, a charming town in the Abruzzo region. This masterpiece takes the idea of spaghetti and meatballs to a whole other level. Maccheroni alla Chitarra con le Pallottine is both delicious and fun to eat due to the adorable little meatballs. (I think they bring out the inner child in anyone that tries them.) This festive and satisfying dish would be perfect for your next Sunday dinner or celebration. You can even get your family involved in the process: food should bring people together, no?

My journey with Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Tiny Meatballs

Though I had heard of this dish for many years through my cookbooks, I never got to try it until I went to Abruzzo in 2019. I first tasted it upon our arrival to the region, in the city of Pescara. Honestly, it blew me away. It was so scrumptious. Eating it was almost like a treasure hunt as I sifted through the noodles in order to find the tender little meatballs. What’s not to love? From that moment on, I was hooked. The next time I sampled it, I had it in Teramo itself, the dish’s birthplace. Thankfully, we stayed in the city for a few days so I had the opportunity to try it in a variety of restaurants and came to understand the flavor profile really well. (Culinary research – yippee!)

Now that we have an apartment in Abruzzo and spend our summers there, I have eaten Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Tiny Meatballs more times than I can count!

Eventually, it became such a family favorite that I needed to learn how to make it myself. After obsessive research about the preparation, reading traditional recipes, chatting with locals, video watching, and recipe testing, I now have a recipe that will take you straight to Teramo. If you can’t travel to all of the places you’d like to see, travel through your kitchen! It’s a fun and simple way to see and taste the world! Now, when we are outside of Abruzzo, I can have this delectable yumminess whenever I want.

Travel & language tips …

Before I get to the details about the recipe, I want to share the various names one might come across while traveling in Abruzzo. Italy is a land full of dialects and confusing/conflicting names so I want to ensure that you don’t miss out if you are lucky enough to be visiting. Also, if you enjoy watching cooking videos as I do on YouTube, this list will be helpful if you wish to look up Italian videos. Following are the various names I’ve come across in my reading and travels:

• Spaghetti alla Chitarra con le Pallottine
• Spaghetti alla Chitarra con Pallottine
• Spaghetti alla Chitarra con Pallotte
• Maccheroni alla Chitarra con le Pallottine
• Chitarrine con le Pallottine
• Chitarrine alla Teramana
• Chitarra alla Teramana
• Pasta alla Chitarra con Pallottine alla Teramana
• Maccheroni alla Chitarra con Sugo e Polpettine

When you see the dish on a menu outside of Teramo, it’s referred to as “alla Teramana” (meaning Teramo style). Inside the city, it’s not. Note that in Italian, the word polpetta/e is the word for a ball such as a meatball, tuna ball, zucchini ball, etc., In Teramo however, they use a variant of the word “palla” which means ball. Pallottine means little ball. They are so small in fact, that they are no larger than a cooked chickpea! In Teramana cuisine, these little meatballs are featured in other dishes as well such as Timballo and Stracciatella con le Pallottine. If you love dishes with little meatballs, be sure to click here for my recipe for Baked Pasta with Little Meatballs.

Tips for Success

As I mentioned in the intro, this is a great preparation to savor on a Sunday or a festive occasion. It’s not particularly difficult but it is time-consuming. An intermediate or advanced cook will be more than up to the task. If you are a beginner, make the prep a culinary project with your friends and family. I will give you tips to streamline the process.

There are three main components to the recipe – the sauce (ragù), the meatballs, and the pasta. Thankfully, you can do a lot of the steps ahead of time. For instance, you can prepare the ragù a day or two ahead and keep it in the fridge. The same goes for the meatballs. In addition, both freeze well. You can keep the sauce in the freezer for up to 3 months and the meatballs for 1 month. If you prepare the recipe and end up loving it as much as I do, you can always prepare a double batch of the sauce and meatballs and freeze half. Then you just need to make the pasta when you are in the mood for some deliciousness. I suggest that you make the sauce and meatballs a day ahead and then make the pasta the day you want to entertain.

If the idea of making incredibly small meatballs is going to keep you from preparing this, you can still have a wonderful meal with just the pasta and ragù. You will have a beautiful bowl of pasta either way. Frankly, if you want to make things even easier for yourself, you can buy the chitarra pasta, skip the meatballs and simply make the sauce. Do what you can. For those that don’t mind spending time in the kitchen, making the entire dish is well worth the effort! It is scrumptious and it’s rewarding to eat food that takes so much love to make.

Notes on Spaghetti alla Chitarra alla Teramana

The ragù

For my ragù, I use a mixture of three types of meat – beef or veal, pork, and lamb as the base. Like a Neapolitan ragù (as in Sunday gravy) we are talking about large, whole chunks of meat, not ground. In my research, I discovered several versions of the sauce – one had a simple soffritto base (onion, carrot, & celery) with tomato puree, another a soffritto and ground meat base with tomato puree, and last, the mixed meat base with tomato puree. I have decided to share the latter version because that is what I encountered most in my research and travels. It’s heavenly.

Unlike some meat sauces that have a lot of aromatics and herbs, this is a rather simple sauce with extra virgin olive oil, onion, carrot, the three kinds of meat, and tomato puree. Considering the quality of the ingredients in Abruzzo, this is not surprising. When you have good ingredients, you just need to let them shine. True Italian home cooking is very simple and can be so because of the superb, flavorful ingredients.

Some cooks add garlic, celery, and white wine. I tried adding these in testing but didn’t find that they were needed. The wine, surprisingly, didn’t add as much to the sauce as I expected. Ultimately, I found the simplicity of the ragù without the extra seasonings rather appealing. If you add this dish to your rep, feel free to experiment and add white wine, a small amount of garlic, and a teeny bit of celery and see if you prefer it that way. Let me know about your experiences!

Types of meat

In my recipe, I suggest boneless chunks of meat but if you can only find bone-in cuts, no worries, just purchase the meat with the bone and buy approximately double the amount to account for the weight of the bones. For the beef component, you can use veal or beef. I think chuck would be the easiest to find in the US. For the pork, use shoulder or pork ribs. The lamb, which is so essential to the dish, can be a shoulder, leg, or shank.

When serving, the meatballs are cooked in some of the sauce and the meat is served separately as a second course.

The Meatballs

As with the ragù, the meatballs are incredibly simple and don’t include all of the regular seasonings you may be accustomed to in a southern Italian meatball. Generally, they are made with either beef or veal, fresh nutmeg (very important – don’t skimp and use only freshly grated), salt, pepper, egg yolk or whole egg, and a touch of grated Abruzzese pecorino or Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. (You don’t want to use too much cheese which could cover the taste of the nutmeg.) Surprisingly, I found few recipes that add garlic and parsley to the meatballs. Therefore, I exclude them.

I tested meatballs with both veal and beef and surprisingly preferred the beef. They are so small that I think the beef holds up better and is less likely to dry out. The veal was a tad too delicate and on the verge of being dry. If you put this recipe in your rotation, try both and see what you like. Some use a mix of beef and pork. The pallottine are so small that they usually don’t need breadcrumbs. They end up tender without.

When preparing pallottine, the most intimidating part is how time-consuming it is to form them. The mixture comes together in a flash but the balls… I recommend that you do this in a group and in particular with kids! Their tiny hands are perfect for forming them. As I stated earlier, the meatballs should be the size of a cooked chickpea. They are super duper small!

I love my kitchen tools!

Luckily, I have a tool that makes quick work of them called a Poldino Polpettino. It is available in Europe and Australia but unfortunately not in the US. I’ve included a picture below of the box. The size that I use is 1 cm (they come in 3 sizes). For those interested in seeing the tool being used, click here to see a video that I posted on Instagram. In the video, I also demonstrate how to form a meatball without the tool.

The Pasta

Ah, one of my favorite subjects – pasta! Sigh… There are many different recipes for this type of pasta. Some cooks use 00 flour, others durum wheat, others use a mix. My recipe is simply finely ground durum wheat (semola di grano duro rimacinata) and eggs.

Spaghetti or maccheroni alla chitarra are long strands of spaghetti-like pasta with squared sides (about 2-3 mm wide on each side). In order to make them traditionally, you need a tool called a chitarra (guitar). Why a guitar? Well, a chitarra is a rectangular wooden construction with steel strings attached, like a guitar. To form the noodles you roll pasta sheets over the guitar with a rolling pin and the noodles fall through. It’s magic! If you don’t have a chitarra, no worries, you can use the spaghetti attachment on your pasta machine. You will end up with thinner chitarre or chitarrine because the machine attachment makes a noodle that is more narrow.

For the visual learners out there, here is a link to an Instagram Reel where I make the noodles on a chitarra. If you have a chitarra, please be sure to check out my recipe for Tonnarelli alla Gricia with Artichokes. Tonnarelli are Roman’s answer to pasta alla chitarra.

Last Notes & the Recipe for Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Tiny Meatballs

If you are a spice lover, the cuisine of Abruzzo should be right up your alley. Like its southern neighbors, Calabria, Molise, and Basilicata, Abruzzo uses a good amount of chili. I love it! When serving this dish, it’s very common to see olio santo on the side which is chili-infused olive oil. You can purchase it or make it yourself. If don’t find olio santo, you will likely see a fresh Abruzzese chili on a plate with a pair of kitchen shears so that guests can cut some fresh chili to put on top of their pasta. It’s brilliant. Since I have a daughter who is too young to enjoy spice, I don’t add chili to my sauce. If you don’t have that restriction, feel free to add some chili flakes to your sauce.

For more recipes from Abruzzo, check out my recipe for Sagne e Ceci – pasta and chickpea soup. It’s perfect for the upcoming colder weather. For dessert, why not serve this fun take on Tiramisù using cantucci cookies instead of savoiardi?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I am now seriously hungry for Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Tiny Meatballs! Enjoy the recipe. Don’t forget to serve some Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine with your meal. Please leave comments below if you prepare the recipe or have any questions.

Spaghetti alla Chitarra with Tiny Meatballs (Maccheroni alla Chitarra con le Pallottine

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Serves: 6

Nutrition facts: 200 calories 20 grams fat

Rating: 5.0/5

( 1 voted )

Ingredients

• For the sauce:
• 4-6 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, or more to taste
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1 small carrot, peeled & minced
• 300 grams (11 oz) beef chuck in one piece
• 300 grams (11 oz) pork shoulder in one piece (see note)
• 300 grams (11 oz) lamb shoulder, shank, or leg in one piece (see note)
• 2 kg (4.4 lbs) canned whole tomatoes, passed through a food mill, or tomato puree (see note)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
• For the meatballs:
• 300 grams ground beef or veal
• 1 egg
• 2 g (1/2 teaspoon) sea salt
• 10 grams (3 Tablespoons) Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, freshly grated
• freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste (optional)
• Oil for frying
• For the pasta:
• 500 grams (18 oz) finely ground durum wheat flour (semola di grano duro rimacinata)
• 5 eggs
• To serve:
• Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino Abruzzese, or Pecorino Romano cheese, freshly grated
• Chili oil (optional)

Instructions

1. Prepare the sauce: Heat a large stockpot or Dutch oven that can fit the meat in a single layer over medium-high heat. Add extra virgin olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan, about 4-6 tablespoons. Season the beef, pork, and lamb with salt and pepper and brown on all sides, taking care not to burn the bottom of the pan. Adjust the heat as necessary. Once the meat is browned, remove it and set it aside on a sheet pan or platter.
2. Lower the heat to low. Add the onion and carrot with a pinch of salt and stir. Cook very slowly and gently for 10-12 minutes, stirring frequently. You want the onions and carrots to be completely tender and soft.  Taste a bite to make sure there is no crunch left. If using, add the chili flakes at this time.
3. Next, return the meat to the pan and gently coat it in the aromatics. Add the pureed tomatoes, rinsing out the cans or jars with a small amount of water to avoid waste. Add a generous pinch of salt and pepper to taste. Bring the sauce to a simmer, lower the heat and simmer for 2 1/2-3 hours until you reach a sauce consistency and the meat is fork tender. If the meat is not quite tender and the sauce becomes too thick, add water if necessary. Turn off the heat and adjust the seasoning. 
4. Prepare the meatballs: While the sauce is simmering, place all of the meatball ingredients into a medium bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands. Before forming all of the meatballs, test a small meatball in a frying pan first to check the seasoning. Once that is done, form the meat mixture into small meatballs the size of chickpeas (10-13 mm). Once that is complete, fry the meatballs in 1/4-inch of oil until very lightly golden. They are too small to get very brown without drying out. Drain them on a plate lined with a layer of paper towels and set aside.
5. Prepare the pasta: Place the flour on a clean work surface, and form a well in the center by creating a circular wall of flour with enough space in the center to hold the eggs. Crack the eggs into the well and start beating them with a fork, adding the flour bit by bit in a circular motion from the surrounding wall of flour to create a smooth dough that is moist, yet firm and not sticky. Once you’ve incorporated all of the flour into the eggs, gently knead the dough until it’s very smooth, pliable, and doesn’t stick to your hands. Add flour as necessary to achieve the right consistency. It should take about 10 minutes.
6. Form the dough into a ball, flatten it a bit, cover it tightly in plastic wrap, and set aside at room temperature for 30-60 minutes to let the dough rest. You should have about 750 grams (1 1/2 pounds) of dough. It can be made a day in advance and kept in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before rolling out.
7. After your dough has rested, roll it out with a pasta machine or rolling pin until it is about 3 mm thick. If you have a chitarra, cut out your noodles on the chitarra with a rolling pin, making sure to start with a length of pasta shorter than the chitarra, because it will get longer as you roll it out. If using a machine, use your spaghetti attachment, or cut thin noodles with a knife. If the noodles are a little sticky, toss them with flour to keep them from sticking to one another, and set aside until you're ready to cook.
8. Once all of the components of the dish are ready, bring a large pot of water to a boil and add a generous amount of salt. It should taste about as salty as seawater.
9. Remove the meat with some of the sauce for your second course. Simmer the previously fried meatballs in the remaining sauce for 3-5 minutes.
10. Cook the pasta until al dente, tasting a noodle after a couple of minutes. Once the pasta is very al dente, scoop it out of the pasta water and toss directly in the sauce and cook for 1 minute. This will finish the cooking and meld the flavors of the pasta and sauce together. Serve immediately with grated cheese and chili oil on the side. 

Notes

You may use bone-in meat if you cannot find boneless. Buy approximately double the amount in weight. Pork ribs work nicely as does the leg or shoulder of lamb. Two kilograms of canned tomatoes equals five, 400 g cans or two and a half 28 oz cans of tomatoes.