Name: Cavatelli con salsiccia e zucchine
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 500 g cavatelli, preferably fresh; 500 g sausage meat, crumbled; 750 g zucchini, cut into small cubes; 2 garlic cloves (peeled and lightly crushed); olive oil; salt and pepper; 250 g 1/2 lb or to taste, caciocallo cheese, shredded or cut into tiny cubes

Well, the weather is changing around here. These late August days are still warm, but the mornings and evenings are cool, sometimes even a bit chilly. An early reminder that autumn is just around the corner. If you ask me, this is perfect weather. It’s perfect, too, for this simple weeknight pasta dish called cavatelli con salsiccia e zucchine, pairing our still plentiful zucchini with a bit of welcome heft provided by crumbled sausage.

It’s the kind of quick and easy pasta dish you can whip up in 30 minutes or less. While your pasta water is coming to a boil, you sauté a couple of garlic cloves and some crumbled sausage meat, then add cubed zucchini and continue for just a couple of minutes longer, until the zucchini is still crisp-tender. To finish the dish, you add your slightly underdone pasta, along with a ladleful of pasta water, and let them get to know each other for a minute or two, until both pasta and zucchini are fully cooked. Then in goes a generous amount of caciocavallo cheese. You toss it all together until the cheese has melted to form a creamy and savory sauce.

Ecco fatto! Dinner’s on the table.

The recipe calls for two ingredients, a pasta called cavatelli and a cheese called caciocavallo, that aren’t terribly well known outside Italy. But they should be. Cavatelli are one of Puglia’s most iconic pastas, every bit as toothsome as their better known sisters orecchiette. Caciocavallo is a popular southern Italian cheese that features in countless local dishes, yet is almost impossible to find here in the US.

Of course there are easier to find substitutes for these ingredients, which you’ll find described in the Notes below. But it’s worth seeking them out, especially if they’re new to you. This recipe would be a fine way to get to know them.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

500g (1 lb) cavatelli, preferably fresh
500g (1 lb) sausage meat, crumbled
750g (1-1/2 lbs) zucchini, cut into small cubes
2 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed
olive oil
salt and pepper

To finish the dish:

250g (1/2 lb) or to taste, caciocallo cheese, shredded or cut into tiny cubes

Directions

Cook the pasta

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add a good pinch of salt and the cavatelli. Cook until nearly al dente.

Prepare the sauce

While the water is coming to a boil, gently sauté the garlic in a skillet or sauté pan. When it’s fragrant and just beginning to brown, remove it and discard.

Add the crumbled sausage meat and let it sauté lightly, breaking up any large pieces, until it loses its raw color and just starts to brown around the edges.

Now add the cubed zucchini. Toss everything together, season with salt and pepper. Sauté until the zucchini is just crisp tender.

Finishing the dish: la mantecatura

When the cavatelli are done, drain and add them to the sausage and zucchini, along with a small ladleful of the pasta water.

Toss everything together and sauté for a few moments, until the pasta and zucchini are fully cooked and most of the liquid has evaporated. Then add the caciocavallo and toss again, off heat, until the cheese has fully melted. The sauce should turn creamy and coat the pasta nicely.

Serve right away.

Notes on cavatelli con salsiccia e zucchine

This simple dish doesn’t have too many pitfalls. I’d only suggest you be careful not to overcook the zucchini as they tend turn mushy quite quickly. Best to cook them only a couple of minutes to start. They will finish cooking during the mantecatura, when you toss them with the pasta.

While the method is simple, the key to making a truly tasty cavatelli con salsicce e zucchine, like so many Italian dishes, lies in carefully choosing the right ingredients. And as mentioned at the top, this recipe includes two unusual ingredients, a pasta called cavatelli and a cheese called caciocavallo.

Cavatelli

Cavatelli, one of the most iconic pastas in Puglian cookery, are made from a simple dough of semolina rimacinata (or semolina mixed with 00 flour) and water, the same dough used for making another iconic pasta from Puglia, orecchiette. You roll the dough into thinnish logs, cut them into short lengths, then curl them by pressing against a ribbed surface. This curling process gives cavatelli their charactertic hollowed out shape (cavato means “hollowed out”) ideal for catching chunky sauces like this one.

While you can buy cavatelli either dry or fresh, but, much like orecchiette, the fresh variety is far superior in my opinion, with a pleasant chewiness that the dry version lacks. Here in the US, cavatelli can be challenging to find in stores but you can purchase them online.

You can also make cavatelli at home. If you’ve made potato gnocchi then you’ll be more or less familiar with the technique, though since cavatelli are smaller, they require rather better small motor skills. I can think of no better tutor than fellow Substacker Giovanna S., a Puglia native now living in California, whose pasta making skills are nothing short of astounding. You can find her recipe for making cavatelli at home in this post.

Otherwise, you can substitute cavatelli with its sister orecchiette, which are easier to find, or another short pasta with nooks and crannies to catch a chunky sauce, such as caserecce, gemelli or fusilli.

Caciocavallo

Caciocavallo literally means “horse cheese,” a name derived from the traditional traditional method of aging the cheese, where pairs of bag-shaped cheeses are tied together and hung over a wooden beam to age as if they were saddlebags.

A pasta filata (stretched curd) cheese like mozzarella, caciocavallo has a lovely semi-soft texture and mild, almost buttery yet slightly tangy taste when young, turning harder and sharper as it ages. The younger caciocavallo is generally cubed or sliced for eating or cooking, while the older, more granular variety can be grated over pasta. You could use either for this dish. Either will work for this dish.

There are many different kinds of caciocavallo, produced all over southern Italy. The prized caciocavallo silano, which is produced in designated areas of Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise as well as Puglia, has denominazione d’origine protetta (DOP) status.

Caciocavallo is a common ingredient in southern Italian dishes, but it isn’t always easy to source outside Italy. In a recent Substack Live, I bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t find caciocavallo for love or money where I live now, on the east coast of the US. Well, that prompted a number of kind viewers (including my sister) to reach out with the names of stores and websites where I could in fact, buy it Stateside. Hurray! (That said, it costs a bomb, so it’s still worth picking it up while you’re in Italy.)

But if you’re not heading to Italy soon, and/or you’re not up for spending the outrageous prices for imported caciocavallo, you can substitute a mild provolone, which has a similar taste profile. Or just go with some freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano or pecorino.

Choosing your zucchini

Look for small zucchini if you can find them, ones that weigh around 150g (5 oz) or so. Here in the US, zucchini tend to run very large, and larger zucchini I find have less flavor and a rather fibrous texture. I also like to look for lighter skinned specimens. I’m not sure it has any real impact on flavor or texture, but they remind me of the zucchini I used to buy back in Rome, though finding true zucchine romanesche, with their tender skins, delicate ribbing and lovely flowers still attached, is well nigh impossible where I live now.

Choosing your sausage

As for the sausage, mild “Italian style” sausage works best for making cavatelli con salsiccia e zucchine. But you could sub any fresh sausage you can find, provided it’s not too heavily spiced or seasoned. A spicy sausage will tend to overwhelm the delicate taste of the zucchini.

Variations

As usual, feel free to play with the measurements provided here to suit your taste. For a lighter, less caloric dish, you could go easier on the sausage or cheese, for example. (NB: I’m a cheese lover, so I’ve really lent into the cheese here.)

You can turn zucchini’s tendency to turn mushy to your advantage. In some recipes, you sauté the zucchini separately. You then purée it, before adding it to your sautéed sausage to simmer together for a minute or two. Then you toss in your cooked pasta.

Other variations you can try include:

If you want a sweeter taste, you can substitute the garlic with shallots and/or the oil with butter.
Add a splash of white wine to the sautéed sausage and let it evaporate. This is a common procedure in Italian cookery, especially for meat sauces and stews, called sfumare.
Add some minced fresh herbs such as basil, parsley or mint for color and aroma.

Making ahead and leftovers

The recipe is so quick there’s really no real reason to make cavatelli con salsiccia e zucchine ahead. That said, you can prepare the sauce ahead and cook the pasta when you’re ready to eat.

Cavatelli are rather chewy and retain their texture rather better than most pastas. So, although it’s not ideal, reheated leftovers will be quite edible. I’d warm them up with a ladeful of the pasta water, or tap water if you’re already thrown it out. Once it’s nice and hot, turn off the heat and toss with some additional cheese.

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