Sauces · Italian cuisine
Aglio e olio
Garlic, olive oil and chilli – a Neapolitan sauce from the barest pantry staples.
At a glance
- Origin
- Naples and Campania, popular cooking.
- Production
- Garlic slowly gilded in oil, chilli, parsley and a little pasta water.
- Ratio
- 4 garlic cloves and about 100 ml olive oil per 360 g pasta.
- Pairs with
- Spaghetti, vermicelli or linguine.
Aglio e olio, in full aglio, olio e peperoncino, is a sauce of extra virgin olive oil, garlic and hot chilli, finished with parsley. It is often filed under Roman cooking, but Rome’s tourist board attributes it to Campania and Naples in particular, where it arose in poor households as a stand-in for pasta with clams.
Garlic is turned golden slowly in the oil over a very low flame; it must not burn or it turns bitter. Chilli and chopped parsley stems go in, then off the heat a little pasta water: it salts the oil and its starch gives the sauce body. Pasta cooked al dente is tossed briefly in the pan and scattered with parsley leaves.
Cheese is traditionally not added. Thin long pasta suits it best – spaghetti, vermicelli, linguine.