Nonna’s Classic Pastina Recipe
Nonna’s classic pastina recipe with egg is the Italian equivalent of a creamy chicken soup. It’s comforting, yummy, and easy to digest- perfect to get you back on your feet when you are sick!
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Growing up my Nonna made the best recipes.
And there’s was one thing she was guaranteed to make if any of us had so much as a sniffle: this easy pastina recipe.
It’s pretty much the equivalent of chicken noodle soup and many say it is a good cure for what ails you.
Pastina works so well to make you feel better fast that we call it Italian penicillin.
What does pastina mean?
In Italian, pastina means small pasta.
And that’s exactly what it is!
Ingredients
To make this you’ll need:
- Water– To cook the pastina
- Pastina – You can find it with the pasta in the grocery store or buy it online.
- Egg– Beaten
- Butter
- Parmesan cheese– Shredded, shaved, or grated will all work.
- Salt and pepper– To taste
How to Make
This is a very easy pastina recipe! If you can boil water, you can make this!
To do it, add the water to a pot, salt the water, and set over high heat.
When the water’s boiling, add the pastina to the pot and stir.
Cook, stirring often, until the pastina absorbs most of the water.
Then remove the pot from heat, and whisk in the beaten egg immediately so the egg incorporates into the pasta and doesn’t cook right away.
After you whisk the egg into the pastina, stir in the butter and cheese until the butter melts and everything is evenly incorporated.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve and enjoy!
How long does it take to boil pastina?
It depends on what brand you are using and how much you are cooking.
For this recipe it takes until the pastina absorbs most of the water, which takes about 4 minutes.
What type of pasta is pastina?
Pastina literally means little pasta in Italian.
It’s a small, normally round pasta (though there are some varieties where the pastina is shaped like stars).
Storing Leftovers
I don’t recommend storing leftovers.
The pastina continues to absorb the liquid the longer it sits so it’s best made fresh.
Seriously, within 10-15 minutes it will resemble cous cous rather than rich, creamy, saucy pasta.
Tips and Tricks
- You can sub extra virgin olive oil for the butter, if preferred.
- The pastina will continue to absorb liquid the longer it sits so don’t make it ahead of time!
- It easily doubles or triples if you are feeding a larger crowd.
- This isn’t a dish that can cook, or sit, unattended. When it says whisk or stir, make sure to do so!
Other Easy Italian Recipes
Nonna’s pastina recipe with egg is Italian medicine that tastes delicious!
Make it the next time you are under the weather and feel better fast!
Looking for other easy Italian recipes? Try these:
- Italian Abruzzi Pasta
- Nonna’s Italian Style Chicken Noodle Soup
- Creamy Slow Cooker Italian Chicken
- Nonna’s Italian Macaroni Pie
- Nonna’s Spaghetti & Broccoli Recipe
- Spicy Italian Sausage Alfredo Tortellini
If you’ve tried this PASTINA RECIPE WITH EGG, or any other recipe on my site, let me know in the comment section how it turned out, we love hearing from our readers! You can also follow along with me on PINTEREST, FACEBOOK, and INSTAGRAM to see more amazing recipes and whatever else we’ve got going on!
Nonna's Pastina Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 cups water
- 1 cup pastina
- 1 egg beaten
- 2 1/2 tbsp butter
- 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese shredded, shaved, or grated
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Add the water to a pot, and set over high heat. Add salt to the water.
- Once the water's boiling, add the pastina to the pot and stir.
- Cook, stirring often, until most of the water's been absorbed- about 3-4 minutes.
- Remove the pot from heat, and whisk in the beaten egg. Whisk immediately and quickly so the egg incorporates and doesn't cook right away.
- Add the butter & cheese to the pot, stirring until evenly incorporated.
- Season with salt & pepper, to taste.
- Spoon the pastina into bowls, and serve immediately.
Notes
- You can sub extra virgin olive oil for the butter, if preferred.
- The pastina will continue to absorb liquid the longer it sits so don't make it ahead of time!
- It easily doubles or triples if you are feeding a larger crowd.
- This isn't a dish that can cook, or sit, unattended. When it says whisk or stir, make sure to do so!
Nutrition
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I would love to know how to make the pastina itself from scratch being that they discontinued selling it now we have to make it on our own. can you please post the ingredients and how to make it and then cook it from scratch?
I am not sure how to make it from scratch, although I can certainly work on a recipe for it. I have seen the same news, and it looks like it’s only Ronzoni brand that’s discontinuing it. Barilla also makes the little pasta stars, and they cook up just as well.
you can find a lot of small little pastas at most Mexican stores, they have stars, alphabets, and little short angel hairs.
This recipe is perfect! Simple, delicious, hard to mess up. Usually have the ingredients in the house. Great when not feeling well.
Delicious comfort food! I only had some grated Romano so used about 1/2 the amount of that, about 3 tablespoons.
The 4 cups of water didn’t really absorb as much in 4 minutes of cooking (I had it hot enough for boiling) so I drained some but not all at the end. Also for those mourning Ronzoni stars pastina it looks like Barilla is now producing it
I used chicken broth (3 cups), water (1cup), and had to substitute orzo for the pastina. Liquid did not reduce much in the 7-1/2 minutes it took the orzo to cook, but it was a nice broth. I will reduce it to 3 cups liquid total next time I make it. All-in-all, simple and delicious.
Using broth would definitely give it extra flavor; however, orzo doesn’t absorb liquid quite like pastina. And pastina continues to absorb the liquid as it sits (mentioned in the post). So yes, if you’re going to make it with a different pasta you’d need to adjust the amount of liquid used.
so yummy! I used too much salt in my water (I was salting like for pasta, forgetting that it would concentrate as the liquid absorbs and concentrates), so I’ll use far less next time. i used the tiny alphabet pasta because it’s what i had. delicious and comforting.
I’m curious, what does the egg do? I’ve seem some recipes that doesn’t use eggs.
In my opinion that add a richness and creaminess to the dish. This is how my husband’s grandmother has always made them, so I’m not familiar with a pastina that doesn’t include eggs.
4 cups of water in a rolling boil, and this has been cooking for at least 10 minutes. I don’t know how I’m going to strain this. Way way, way too much liquid.