Polenta Taragna | Cheesy Italian Polenta Recipe

Polenta Taragna | Cheesy Italian Polenta Recipe

This simple, northern Italian dish traditionally uses a corn/buckwheat polenta blend, giving the finished dish a stronger, earthier taste. It‘s available online or you can make your own mix (see below). What’s much trickier to find is the correct cheese, even in much of Italy. In most cases, fontina is probably the closest substitute.

How to Make Your Own Polenta Taragna Flour

Polenta taragna is a mix of polenta flour and buckwheat flour. The ratio can vary, but usually it's about 3 parts medium-coarse polenta flour with 1 part fine buckwheat flour. So for this recipe, you would want to mix 187.5 grams of polenta with 62.5 grams of buckwheat.

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Polenta Taragna Recipe

Makes: 3 to 4 servings

For this recipe, you will need:

  • Salt
  • 1 ½ cup (250 grams) taragna polenta
  • 2 tablespoons (30 grams) unsalted butter
  • 8 ½ ounces (250 grams) cubed fontina cheese, or to taste


Cook the polenta as directed on the package, being sure to salt the boiling water generously. After the polenta has been cooking for about 25 minutes, stir in the butter and continue to cook. Then, 10 minutes before the polenta is finished, stir in the fontina cheese. That’s it! After the polenta has fully cooked, serve it warm.

Buon appetito!

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2 comments

@S. Good idea, thanks! We included a note above in the recipe. Usually the ratio is about 3 parts medium-coarse polenta flour and 1 part fine buckwheat flour, although that can be tweaked to give an earthier flavor (a little more buckwheat) or a milder taste (a little less buckwheat).

Pasta Grammar

Hi! It would be nice to have suggestion of how to make the polenta mix. Is it 50% buckwheat, 50% corse polenta or 66% buckwheat and 33% fine polenta. Is buckwheat flour too fine? Do we need corse buckwheat? Thank you for your great channel and website.

S.

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