This Classic Italian Pasta Dish Is the Adult Way to Eat Ham and Cheese

Welcome to the dreariest, darkest, most bone-chilling time of year. We've passed the astronomical milestone of the winter solstice, and while the days are getting longer, the cold weather doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. At this point, I've exhausted my curated lists of cozy foods, hearty stews, and pressure-cooker recipes, so I've spent more recent weeks digging deeper into the archives of what I like to think of as "emotional support" recipes, or what Italians call "cibo che scalda il cuore"—food that warms the heart.

A pasta dish made for the coldest days of winter, nidi di rodine is generally believed to hail from the tiny republic of San Marino located within Italy. Sheets of fresh pasta are spread with creamy besciamella (the Italian version of béchamel), then layered with pieces of fontina cheese and thin slices of prosciutto cotto and a sprinkle of Parmigiano-Reggiano. The pasta is then rolled up like a jelly roll and sliced into little lasagna roses (rosette). They're said to look like swallows' nests, though that seems like a stretch to me. Variations of these baked pasta roses are also popular in Italy, where they go by different names depending on the region, including rosette Emiliane in Emilia-Romagna and rosette Modenesi in Modena.

If this sounds a bit labor-intensive, don't be deterred—making nidi di rondine is far less complicated than my last rolled-lasagna project, rosette al forno, but equally rewarding. It evokes the winter Alpine tradition of melting cheese on carbs like tartiflette, raclette, and fondue, but it's relatively easy to assemble, and every serving has those crispy edges we all love. Not just the corners, but every piece. And isn't that the best part of lasagna?

Tips and Techniques for Making and Shaping Nidi di Rondine

There are just a few details worth knowing before making your own nidi di rondine:

Use the right prosciutto. Most often when people say "prosciutto," they're referring to prosciutto crudo, the uncooked, cured pork leg that's a staple of many charcuterie boards. For this dish, though, we want prosciutto cotto, which translates as "cooked" prosciutto, which is to say, it's really like sliced deli ham: very high-quality, incredibly delicious sliced deli ham. It has a milder, more delicate flavor than its saltier cured cousin, and it handles being cooked well—it's not prone to becoming overly salty and leathery the way cooked prosciutto crudo can.

When it comes to pasta, fresh is best. As with most other lasagna recipes, this dish is best when made with fresh sheets of pasta. You can find it pre-made at specialty markets and higher-end grocery stores. Of course you can also make your own lasagna sheets from scratch, which adds time to the process but allows you to control the size of the sheets even more. The choice is yours, but I generally consider the convenience of store-bought fresh pasta worth it.

Could you use dried lasagna sheets? I haven't tested this specific recipe with it, but I feel fairly certain it would work in a pinch. The key is to avoid overcooking the pasta—very al dente is what you want so your pasta doesn't turn to mush when it's baked. (Also note that no-boil lasagna sheets won't work here, since you need them to be flexible enough to roll during assembly.)

Perfect your besciamella. The besciamella is the foundation of the recipe—the glue, the moisture, and the base for the cheesy sauce. I use Daniel's classic béchamel recipe, which includes the perfect ratios of flour, butter, and milk for this dish. Make sure to cook it long enough to both remove the flour's raw flavor and to give the flour time to properly thicken the milk. In the recipe below, the nutmeg is listed as optional, but I'd strongly recommend using it; it's part of the signature flavor of a classic béchamel, especially one used in dishes like this.

Choose your cheese wisely. This recipe calls for two cheeses, each playing an essential role. Since this dish originates not too far from the Alps, an Alpine-style cheese is the natural choice. You want a semi-hard, meltable cheese with a nutty flavor that isn't overpowering. I recommend real fontina from Valle D'Aosta, but asiago and Gruyère (yes, a Swiss cheese) also work beautifully. The second cheese is Parmigiano-Reggiano, which adds saltiness and a savory-sweet flavor and helps thicken the sauce that forms as the fontina melts into the besciamella. Parmigiano-Reggiano also helps keep the filling—including your prosciutto cotto—from oozing out when the lasagna rolls are sliced into rosettes and arranged in the baking dish. Feel free to sprinkle extra on top—I'm not here to stop you.

If you're still dreaming of sitting inside a snowy winter lodge on a European mountain this winter, this recipe will undoubtedly provide the warm and cozy vibes you're looking for.