guanciale

noun

guan·​cia·​le gwän-ˈchä-lē  -(ˌ)lā 

: a cured Italian meat product typically made with pork jowls and spices (such as bay leaf, juniper, and black pepper)

Guanciale is commonly used in pasta dishes, diced or sliced and sautéed to render its fat and flavor the pasta sauce.

—Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn

There is very little historical material on the origins of cured guanciale, but in most parts of the world where some form of bacon has been produced, the jowl was one of the cuts used.

—Dino Joannides

Examples of guanciale in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Chef Joe Cheek and his team offer a shrimp boat with fresh basil, Parmesan and a Peruvian yellow pepper sauce; cauliflower tossed with guanciale, fish sauce and red miso spiked with chili crisp, and some of the best soup specials in town. —Keith Pandolfi, The Enquirer, 27 Nov. 2024

The tannins are rounded and smooth and are a perfect foil for the salty guanciale and creamy egg yolk in carbonara. —Mike Desimone and Jeff Jenssen, Robb Report, 17 Oct. 2024

The fresh eggs give the dish a vivid yellow hue, and the hefty, crisp pieces of guanciale are doled out with precision; it’s said that the chef personally counts the seven pieces allotted to each plate. —Laura May Todd Enea Arienti, New York Times, 17 May 2024

Girod was a protege of Chris Bianco, one of the country’s most celebrated pizza makers, and here, his Neapolitan-style creations are flavored with very Italian ingredients like guanciale and pistachio. —Chadner Navarro, Condé Nast Traveler, 15 Apr. 2024

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from regional Italian (Lazio, Umbria) (in general Italian, "pillow, cushion"), from Italian guancia "cheek" + -ale, denominal noun suffix, going back to Latin -ālis -al entry 1; guancia going back (perhaps by back-formation from plural *guanke) to Germanic *wanga- or *wangōn- (whence also Old English wang [strong masculine], wange [weak neuter] "cheek, side of the face," Old Saxon & Old High German wanga "cheek," Old Icelandic vangi), of uncertain origin

Note: M. Cortelazzo and P. Zolli (Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana) suggest that, given the distribution of guancia in Italy, it was acquired from the Lombard speech of the early medieval Duchy of Spoleto. The Germanic noun is further attested in Old English wangere "pillow, cushion," with cognates in Old High German wangari, Gothic waggareis. The "cheek" etymon has been compared with Germanic *wanga- "field, meadow," whence Old English wang, wong "plain, field," Gothic waggs "paradise," etc.

First Known Use

1987, in the meaning defined above