I have been so, so excited to share this homemade pasta recipe with a squash and parmesan sauce. Firstly, because everything in this dish is made from scratch. And secondly, because it is such an approachable dish to make. There is no pasta machine required for this, and the sauce is actually simple and wholesome. Putting everything together can be a fun and meditative process and the rewards are evident pretty immediately. There is very little not to like when it comes to this dish!
For the pasta itself, I used my own Pici Pasta recipe, which can be found: here. Simply follow the instructions for making the pici pasta in my cacio e pepe recipe and don't be intimidated in the least. This pasta only requires all-purpose flour, semolina flour, water, olive oil, and salt! You have to just let it rest for 40 minutes before rolling it out and forming these beautiful shapes, per above - but that's really all there is to it. And you can always make this ahead of time, too!
And now this beautiful golden sauce. The best thing about the sauce is the simplicity behind it. The first step is melting butter in a pan and cooking some sage and pancetta in it until the pancetta is nice and crispy. The oil becomes seasoned with these salty and earthy flavors.
After you've cooked off the pancetta, remove it from the pan and set aside so that we can throw this in later as garnish!
Add a little olive oil to line the pan and then add your cooked squash in. I decided to make my life super simple and just use frozen squash, which tends to melt really well when you cook it over the stove. Once the squash cooks down and you have a beautiful golden sauce as pictured above, add lots of crushed black pepper and your parmesan cheese. You can then add your cooked pasta in and mix everything together until the pasta is fully coated, and garnish with more parmesan cheese.
At this point, all you have to do is add the pancetta and sage back in and sprinkle with additional salt as needed, and you are good to go. Enjoy this bowl of all of the autumn feelings and let it warm you from the inside out!