Sardinian food is the food of shepherds and farmers: few ingredients, plenty of time and great respect for what the land gives. It is quite different from the cooking of mainland Italy, and every area of the island has its own specialities. Here are twelve dishes worth looking for.
Bread
- Pane carasau: thin, crisp sheets of bread, baked twice so they keep for months. It was the bread shepherds took with them to the pastures. Eat it plain, with oil and salt, or softened in broth as pane frattau, layered with tomato sauce, pecorino and a poached egg.
- Spianata: a soft, round flatbread. The one from Ozieri, our town, is famous across the island.
Fresh pasta
- Malloreddus: small ridged semolina gnocchi, often served with sausage and tomato sauce. Here is how to make them.
- Culurgiones: parcels filled with potato, pecorino and mint, closed with a wheat-ear fold. Read our recipe.
- Fregola: small toasted balls of semolina, often cooked with clams or in broth.
- Su filindeu: a rare pasta of extremely fine threads, made by only a handful of women in Nuoro. You may never taste it, but it is worth knowing it exists.
Cheese
- Pecorino Sardo: sheep's cheese, young or aged, eaten at every meal. Our guide to Pecorino Sardo explains the differences.
- Fiore Sardo: a raw-milk shepherds' cheese, often lightly smoked.
Meat
- Porceddu: suckling pig slow-roasted on a spit over wood embers, with crisp skin, often served on a bed of myrtle leaves.
- Agnello: lamb, roasted or stewed, a staple of spring and of holidays in shepherding areas.
Few ingredients and a lot of time: that is the whole secret of Sardinian cooking.
Desserts
- Seadas: a fried pastry filled with fresh sheep's cheese and lemon zest, served hot with honey, ideally bitter strawberry-tree honey.
- Sospiri di Ozieri: small almond sweets with a glaze, each wrapped in fringed coloured paper. A speciality of our town, given at weddings and christenings.
To drink
Sardinia is known for Cannonau, a full-bodied red, and Vermentino, a fresh white. At the end of a meal, a small glass of mirto, the liqueur made from myrtle berries, is almost compulsory.
Taste it at the source
The best way to understand Sardinian food is to cook it. In our fresh pasta class you make culurgiones or malloreddus with us and then sit down to eat. On the farm we also produce extra virgin olive oil from Bosana olives, which you can buy by writing to us.
Cover photo: porceddu on the spit, by Japs 88, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Images resized and converted.
