Pancetta Recipes That Make Us Even More Grateful For Italian Food

We have Italy to thank for most things we love, from burrata to Neapolitan pizza, and recently, we've been thanking them a little extra for pancetta. For those of you who are unfamiliar with pancetta, it's basically Italian bacon. It's salt-cured pork belly, and is often served cubed, but may also be sliced thin. While both bacon and pancetta are cured pork belly, bacon is typically smoked after it's been cured, while pancetta is not. We've been having a bit of a love affair with pancetta lately, and we're not ashamed.

Like bacon, pancetta goes great on top of salads and soups, and, being Italian, it's basically pasta's BFF. We're pretty sure we could be happy eating Bucatini all’Amatriciana, which is made with pancetta, every day for the rest of our lives. Pancetta also goes great with poached eggs, oysters and french onion soup, but that's just the beginning. Here are 29 pancetta recipes that will turn you into pancetta lovers, just like us.

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