Pasta con la Menta

By John, 12 November, 2025
Region
Italy
Description

"Strascinati con la Menta"Here's a nice light pasta dish from Basilicata and Puglia to make if you have plenty of fresh mint on hand. The nights are getting cold, I expect a frost soon, so today I harvested about 10-12 mint plants.

This is traditionally made with strascinati, a sort of stretched orecchiette common in those regions, but any short flat pasta will do.

Yield
6 Servings
Preparation time
5 minutes
Cooking time
10 minutes
Total time
15 minutes
Ingredients
2 T Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
1 T Butter (Unsalted)
1 T Lardo
1 clv Garlic (minced)
1 Dried Red Chili
1 c Fresh Mint
1 lb Short Pasta
Instructions
  1. Put the water on to boil for the pasta.
  2. When the water is at a rolling boil, you can start the sauce and the pasta. The sauce comes together in just 5-6 minutes, and you want the pasta to be ready when the sauce is ready.
  3. Heat the oil, butter, and lardo (pork fatback) together.
  4. When it's hot, add the garlic and the chili pepper.
  5. When the garlic turns golden, the sauce is ready for the pasta. If the pasta isn't ready yet, you can cool the sauce with a little pasta water to keep the garlic from burning and becoming bitter.
  6. When the pasta is ready, drain it and add a third to the sauce, and stir it well. Add half of the mint leaves. 
  7. Add half of the remaining pasta and almost all of the remaining mint leaves. Stir well again. 
  8. Add the last of the pasta, stir again, and garnish the top with the reserved mint leaves. Serve immediately.
Notes

I sliced some of my mint leaves but I'm not sure it was worth the extra effort. 

When picking the mint leaves, I picked the pretty little tips and set them aside to use for the garnish.

Source

La Cucina, of the Accademia Italiana Della Cucina