As a vegetarian, I’m always looking for new ways to recreate the deep, umami flavors that are often found in slow-cooked meat-based sauces. In the past, I usually went for things made with eggplant or mushroom, but I recently stumbled across a new alternative: onion ragù!

Oretta Zanini de Vita mentions a type of onion ragù in her Encyclopedia of Pasta, in the section on pappardelle. It’s nothing more than a line alluding to a sauce paired with pappardelle in certain areas of the Tosco-Emilian Apennines, but I started looking online for more clues. I couldn’t find much, but it did appear that there are two main types of onion ragù. One, similar to a friggione bolognese, braises onions in fresh tomato pulp. Another cooks the onions down in considerably less tomato, relying on stock and tomato paste to make a much richer, almost jammy sauce. I decided to experiment with the latter. The final recipe may not be anything like the ragù alluded to in the Encyclopedia of Pasta, but it’s delicious nonetheless!

I decided to pair it with a cheese stuffed pasta, since I wanted something strong yet creamy enough to really stand up to the complexity of the sauce. I have been working on agnolotti del plin recently, so decided to stick with them.

Agnolotti del plin hail from Piemonte, and are most often stuffed with roasted meat. They are just one regional variety of agnlotti, their name (del *plin*) referencing the pinching technique used in their production.
Lately, however, I’ve seen them stuffed with a variety of cheeses or vegetable fillings, so decided to use up some ricotta and let the savory onion ragù be the undisputed star.

For the pasta dough, you will need:

400g 00 flour
4 eggs

For the filling:

300g ricotta, well drained
150g cooked, drained spinach (I used frozen)
30g Pecorino Romano (or similar)
1 egg
salt & pepper to taste

For the ragù:

600g onion (I used 5 small)
olive oil
pinch ground cloves
2 cloves garlic
splash white wine
2 bay leaves
~250ml vegetable stock (if premade, try to get low-sodium, so the ragù isn’t too salty)
~3T tomato paste
~1/2 cup tomato passata

Start by roughly dicing the onions. I always soak mine in water for a few minutes after removing the skins, so they don’t make my eyes water.

Heat around a quarter cup of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed sauté pan and add in the onions.

Cook for a few minutes on medium heat, then add in the cloves and garlic. Cook for another 5 minutes or so on low heat, then add in the wine and bay leaves. Once the wine has cooked off, cover the pan and cook for around an hour and a half.

Check the pan regularly, adding vegetable stock as needed to keep the onions from burning or getting too dry. I used about 150ml of vegetable stock during this part of the cooking process.

Once the onions are completely cooked down, remove the bay leaves and any large chunks of garlic (if some garlic has disintegrated into the sauce, that's fine!). Add in the tomato paste, the tomato passata, and around another 75-100ml of stock, and gently cook for another 10 minutes. The sauce should be rich and jammy, which is fine at this stage. Later, when you add in the agnolotti, the pasta water will help everything come together.

While the onions are cooking, you can make the pasta. Once the dough is made using the standard method, and while it is resting, make the filling.

Make sure the spinach is well drained, then finely chop. Mix with the cheeses, egg, and season with salt and pepper. Put in a piping bag and set aside until you need it.
You can also make the agnolotti with a plain cheese filling, which goes just as well with the onion ragù.

For the agnolotti:

Start by rolling out your pasta to the thinnest setting on your machine. Pipe heaping teaspoons of filling in a row down the bottom third of the sheet. You can pipe them pretty close together.

Fold the bottom of the pasta sheet up and over the filling. Firmly press down and seal the dough. Next, pinch between each mound of filling to create a connected chain of pockets of pasta.