The unleavened griddle flatbread of San Marino and Romagna — flour, lard, and water cooked fast on a hot flat testo, then folded warm around cured ham, soft cheese, or greens. The everyday bread of the Borgo.
Piadina is the iconic Romagna-San Marino flatbread, traditionally cooked on a terracotta or iron testo and folded around fillings; in San Marino it is the everyday bread, notably of Borgo Maggiore.
Fold a warm piadina around prosciutto and soft cheese and the flatbread is pliable, faintly charred, and rich from the lard. Bite: chewy-soft with crisp golden spots, savory and tender, the salty ham and creamy cheese melting against it, peppery rocket cutting through. Plain, fast, and endlessly adaptable — the daily bread-and-sandwich of San Marino and Romagna.
Lard makes the dough tender and rich and keeps the piadina pliable rather than crisp; baking soda gives a slight lift. A very hot dry surface cooks it fast, blistering golden spots while keeping the inside soft. Cooking thin and serving warm is essential — a cooled piadina turns stiff.
Variations
With squacquerone cheese and figs. Thinner Riminese style. With sausage and greens. Vegetarian with grilled vegetables. Without lard (olive-oil version). As a sweet piadina with Nutella.
On the Palate
Where Piadina sits in the Sammarinese flavor cloud
Roll the dough thin and cook it fast on a screaming-hot dry surface so it blisters golden but stays soft and pliable — a thick or cooled piadina turns stiff and cracks when you fold it.
Ingredients
Serves 6How it's made
8 steps · 35 min active + 25 min waiting
- 16 min
Mix 500 g flour with 80 g lard, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and about 200 ml warm milk/water.
- 226 min
Knead to a smooth, soft dough; rest, covered, 25 min.
- 310 min
Divide into 6 balls and roll each into a thin round about 3 mm thick.
- 45 min
Heat a flat cast-iron pan or testo until very hot, no oil.
Watch outThe pan should be hot enough that a drop of water dances and vanishes at once before the first round goes on.
- 512 min
Cook each round 1-2 min per side, pricking bubbles, until dry with golden-brown spots.
Watch outPrick the big bubbles as they puff and pull it once the surface is dry with golden-brown spots — any longer and it dries out.
- 62 min
Keep the cooked piadine warm and soft under a cloth.
- 74 min
Fold each warm around prosciutto, squacquerone-style soft cheese, and rocket.
- 82 min
Serve immediately while warm and pliable.
