Orecchiette Pasta with Tomato Sauce, Tuna, and Capers

The past few weeks, I’ve been dreaming about going on another trip to Italy. You might have seem from my Insta stories or a few of my posts, like this one.

This month’s Eattiamo food box was inspired by ingredients from southern Italy. The box brought the taste and quality ingredients to our door. Personally, I was excited to learn all about the ingredients because my father was born in the Puglia region of southern Italy and I couldn’t wait to try it.

While making this pasta, I learned that orecchiette is a distinctive type of pasta from the region of Puglia. Orecchiette means small ears, which is fitting because the pasta is shaped like that.

At first, I was unsure that I would like the salsa casareccia al tonno or homemade red sauce with tuna, but I loved it and it’s my favorite recipe yet. The capers gave it a salty touch and we ate a few of them alone with our appetizer.

We must start with the appetizer, right? We had the tarallini and cheese with orange jam. Super easy to prepare.

Now here’s the recipe you came here for:

Ingredients

Orecchiette Pasta by Pastificio Marella
Homemade Tomato Sauce with Tuna by Perché ci Credo
1 small red onion
2 tbsp capers in sea salt by Tasting Sicily
Sea salt (a given)
Olive oil (also a given)

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to boil.
Wash two tablespoons of capers and let them soak in fresh water.
Thinly slice the red onion.
Pour two tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil into a pan (the olive oil that this recipe came with is so good).
Add the sliced onion and cook on low flame.
When the onion is soft, add the tomato sauce with tuna and the well drained capers into the pan and stir well. Cook on low flame for five more minutes, then set aside.
In the meantime, add salt into the water and cook the orecchiette pasta.
Drain the pasta al dente and toss it with the tomato with tuna sauce.

Just before serving, we sprinkled parmesan cheese on top. If we had parsley, we would have added that as well.