Sugo di Funghi

Sugo di Funghi is the Italian mushroom sauce used across northern and central Italy as a base for pasta, risotto, polenta, baked dishes and bruschetta, built on a slow-cooked soffritto of onion, carrot and celery with garlic, olive oil or butter, a splash of dry white wine, and a generous quantity of mixed fresh and dried mushrooms. The most prized combinations use autumn porcini (Boletus edulis) along with darker, more umami-rich dried porcini rehydrated in warm water, but the sauce is also made with common champignon, pleurotus and chiodini when the porcini season is over. The tomato element varies by region: in Piedmont and Trentino the sauce is often left pale and creamy, while in Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and the Apennines it is deepened with a spoonful of tomato paste or a few ripe tomatoes.

It is an everyday autumn and winter preparation in Italian home kitchens, where the sauce is cooked in a wide pan for the better part of an hour so the mushrooms release and reabsorb their liquid, and it is used in lasagne, on pappardelle, in risotto alla boscaiola, baked with polenta, and spooned over grilled meats and bruschetta. It is the sauce most often associated with the mushroom festivals of Cuneo, Trento, Bolzano and the Tuscan Apennines, where porcini and other wild species are celebrated in September and October.