Pansotti
pan-SOH-tee
Also known as pansoti, pansôti, pansòti.
What it is
Pansotti are a triangular stuffed pasta from eastern Liguria, classically filled with preboggion, a foraged mix of Ligurian wild greens, bound with the soft local cheese prescinseua or ricotta. The shape belongs to the Genoa hinterland and appears in early twentieth century gastronomic guides under Rapallo. The defining plate is pansotti with walnut sauce, salsa di noci, a milk-loosened paste of walnuts, garlic, and bread that predates pesto in the region. Cooks fold thin egg dough over the greens, then seal each piece into its rounded, belly-like form.
From the Ligurian and Genoese pansa, belly, a regional form of the Italian pancia. The name reads as pot bellied and points at the parcel's swollen, panciuto look once the filling is folded in.
What sauce it wants, and why
The filling is delicate, wild greens and a soft fresh cheese, so it asks for a sauce that adds richness without burying it. Salsa di noci, the Ligurian walnut sauce, does exactly that, a creamy nut paste loosened with milk that coats the parcels and echoes their earthiness. A heavy long-cooked meat ragu would flatten the greens and the prescinseua, which is why the regional table keeps pansotti with the nut sauce.
Walnut sauce
Classic plates: pansoti con salsa di noci.
No pansotti? Use these
Closest swaps by sauce behavior, not by looks. The ones most easily confused with pansotti, and how they read.
Learn it from someone
- Enrica Monzani, A Small Kitchen in Genoa
Teaches Ligurian home cooking out of her own Genoa kitchen, hands-on classes in trofie, corzetti, pansotti, and pesto made the traditional way.
People who teach this, listed because we think they are good at it. We take nothing for these.
Stay in the loop
From the Almanac
Updates from Pasta Almanac, when there is something worth sharing.