Baked orecchiette with lamb recipe from Matera.

This super simple baked orecchiette with lamb from Basilicata, Southern Italy, is one of the easiest pasta bakes ever! All you need is 5 main ingredients and less than one hour to have this classic traditional lamb pasta bake on the table. This is a great recipe for lamb lovers and to add to your Easter menu!

Orecchiette alla Materana.

Known locally as orecchiette alla Materana (Matera style orecchiette), this baked orecchiette recipe comes from the small city of Matera in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata. Basilicata is one of Italy’s smallest and least populated regions located in the instep of the Italian boot between Puglia, Calabria, and Campania.

A little info about Matera.

Although relatively undiscovered by tourists, Basilicata has much to offer, in particular the original capital Matera, where this lamb pasta recipe comes from. The centre of this ancient city is a World Heritage Site. It is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world next to Petra in Jordan.

Named European Capital of Culture in 2019, Matera is famous for its Sassi district containing houses carved out of stone. Because of its similarity to ancient Middle Eastern cities, Matera has been a location for a number of movies, including Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ. Scenes in the last James Bond movie, A Time to Die, were also made in Matera.

Pasta in Basilicata.

According to food history, some of the oldest records of pasta refer to it being made in Basilicata. This region also has a number of unique pasta shapes. However, the most popular traditional pasta is orecchiette.

Many people think of orecchiette as being a pasta from Puglia (Apulia). But, parts of Basilicata were historically part of neighbouring Puglia. Plus, both regions, along with the rest of Southern Italy, were ruled by the Bourbons for more than a century (1734-1860), so it’s not surprising that orecchiette pasta also originated in Basilicata.

The orecchiette in this recipe.

Traditionally this baked orecchiette with lamb is made with fresh homemade pasta. I often make my own orecchiette and you can check out my homemade orecchiette post if you’d like to make your own. For this recipe I used an unusual, dried pasta called orecchiette di grano arso.

What is grano arso?

The name ‘grano arso’ translates to ‘burnt wheat or grain’! Originally, peasants in Southern Italy collected kernels of wheat from fields that had been harvested and then burnt to clear the stubble that remained after the harvest.

This burnt wheat was then milled to produce a bitter, smoky and nutty flour. This tradition is said to have originated in Puglia. There they used burnt wheat flour, mixed with normal flour, to make bread, taralli, focaccia and pasta such as orecchiette and cavatelli.

Today, you can still buy flour or pasta di grano arso (pasta made with burnt wheat) in Puglia, but the wheat is toasted rather than burnt! Burning fields is no longer legal. Interestingly, despite its very humble origins, grano arso flour is now considered a prized Italian flour variety. It’s also quite expensive and popular among local chefs.

I have seen burnt wheat flour and pasta for sale online from Italian food sites and Amazon in USA and in UK. If you decide to use the flour to make your own orecchiette di grano arso, the ratio is usually 30% burnt wheat flour to 70% normal hard wheat semolina flour (semola di grano duro). Grano arso is very low in gluten and it’s difficult to make pasta with it alone!

The lamb in this recipe.

As in much of Southern Italy, animal farming in Basilicata has long been mostly pigs, sheep and goats because of the mountainous terrain. Consequently, lamb is a popular meat used in many local recipes. This baked orecchiette dish calls for ground or finely diced lamb. You can use either.

I used diced leg meat as ground lamb is hard to come buy here in Northern Italy, where dairy and beef cattle farming is more common. In fact, there are very few traditional Northern Italian dishes with lamb and it’s mostly on the table only at Easter!

Other ingredients.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this baked orecchiette pasta with lamb has only 5 main ingredients. It is surprisingly simple and contains no garlic, onions, or herbs. Apart from the pasta and lamb, all you need is tomatoes or passata (tomato purée), mozzarella and pecorino. The seasoning is just salt and pepper.

Although you may want to add other ingredients, this original version of orecchiette alla Materana is so easy to make and seriously delicious. I confessed I was tempted to include at least some garlic or onion and maybe wine, but I’m glad I didn’t. I decided to go with the original authentic recipe and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed if you do the same.

Making this baked orecchiette pasta with lamb.

This baked orecchiette with lamb is one of the fastest baked pasta recipes I know. If the cooking steps are timed well, you can have it on the table in less than an hour, especially if you are using ground lamb. I used leg meat which had to be cut from the bone and diced. I used the bone to make broth as I like to keep my kitchen as close to zero waste as possible.

The meat sauce is simply browned lamb and tomatoes seasoned with salt and pepper. I used canned ‘polpa’ which is very similar to chopped tomatoes. You can also use fresh peeled sauce tomatoes like San Marzano, canned peeled tomatoes or just passata.

While making the sauce, I put the water on to boil for the pasta. Then I cooked the pasta a bit less than al dente and added it to the ready lamb sauce. The final step is to layer orecchiette and sauce in an oven dish with mozzarella and pecorino and bake it until the top is a little crispy. Easy right?

What to do with leftovers!

I don’t like to freeze cooked pasta but many people do. However, this dish has quite a lot of cheese which doesn’t freeze well. You can keep leftovers sealed in the fridge for 2-3 days and reheat in a microwave or a very hot oven with a little more grated pecorino on the top.

Let me know what you think.

This is a great lamb recipe for Easter. You can serve it as a main course or, as in Italy, a starter. If you do try this baked orecchiette with lamb, I’d love to know what you think of it. Please write a comment here on the blog or post a comment on the Pasta Project Facebook page.

Your feedback means a lot to me!

Buon appetito!

Other lamb pasta recipes to try.

1. Lamb lasagna
2. Homemade Sardinian malloreddus in lamb broth
3. Spinach gnocchi with lamb ragu.
4. Sardinian fregola with lamb
5. Pasta with lamb ragu Molisano.

Are you interested in learning how to make homemade pasta and different types of gnocchi? Then check out my shop page for some great video online courses from my friends in Rome! Nothing beats learning to make pasta from Italians! Plus while you’re there why not order a copy of one of my pasta recipe cookbooks or checkout some recommended pasta making tools?