There's a pasta shape out there that looks exactly like a tiny witch hat. And when Sabrina from Spice Witch reached out about a collab, I knew immediately which pasta we were making.
Imbutini (eem-boo-TEE-nee) — little funnels in Italian — is a relatively new shape, invented by a nurse in Bologna named Flavia Valentini. The story goes that Flavia found a strange circular cutting wheel at a local flea market — an old pasta tool designed for making orecchiette — and started experimenting. What she landed on was imbutini: little cone-shaped pasta that stand upright on the plate and capture sauce inside their hollow centers. They bear a resemblance to the Molise pasta shape cappellaci dei briganti, but they're a little less refined and the origin is entirely their own.
The shape is a little playful, a little architectural, and — let's be honest — completely perfect for a pasta collab with a brand called Spice Witch.
Why Chili Crisp + Butter + Parmigiano Works
The sauce for this dish is deceptively simple: cold butter, finely grated Parmigiano Reggiano, and a generous spoonful of Spice Witch Chili Crisp. That's it. No stovetop, no extra pots. The heat from the freshly cooked pasta and the starch-rich pasta water do all the work, melting the butter and creating a glossy, clinging sauce that wraps around every funnel.
What Spice Witch Chili Crisp brings to the equation is an added layer of flavor interest. It's not just heat — it's savory, a little toasty, with a satisfying crunch. Against the richness of butter and the sharpness of aged Parmigiano, it cuts right through. The result lands somewhere between cacio e pepe and a fiery aglio olio, but lighter and more interesting than either.
The amount of chili crisp you add is up to you. One spoonful might be spot on, while two just might be where you do a little happy dance. Adjust to your heat preference!
What You Need to Make Imbutini
The pasta dough itself is a standard egg pasta: 00 flour, a little semola rimacinata for structure, and a combination of whole eggs and yolks for richness and color. The shaping takes a little practice, but once you get the motion down, it becomes oddly meditative. (All hand-shaped pasta is like this. The first ten are humbling; by the end of the batch, you're in a groove.)
For shaping, you'll need a 1½-inch round cookie cutter (or a small glass), a pasta machine, and a little patience. The imbutini are shaped by hand: wrap a dough circle around your index finger, press the sides together at a diagonal, then splay the bottom open so the little funnel can stand upright. It's easier to watch than to describe. In addition to the step-by-step recipe below, we have a video showing the shaping process.
How to Make Imbutini with Chili Crisp Butter Sauce
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the pasta:
350 grams 00 flour
50 grams semola rimacinata flour
225 grams egg (about 3 whole eggs + 2–3 egg yolks)
For the sauce:
½ cup high-fat unsalted European butter, cold
140 grams Parmigiano Reggiano, aged 24–30 months
1–2 tablespoons Spice Witch Chili Crisp
Kosher salt, to taste
Method
Make the dough. Weigh your flour and eggs into separate bowls. Mound the flour on a clean wooden board, make a well in the center, and add the eggs. Use a fork to break up the yolks and gradually work the flour in from the edges until a shaggy dough forms. Knead for about 10 minutes — stretch forward with the heel of your hand, fold, rotate 90 degrees, repeat — until the dough is smooth, tacky, and springs back when you poke it. Shape into a ball, cover, and rest for at least 30 minutes. (The rest is non-negotiable. It relaxes the gluten and makes the dough significantly easier to work with.)
Sheet the dough. Divide the rested dough into 4 pieces. Roll each one through your pasta machine, starting at the widest setting and working down to setting 6 on a Marcato Atlas — about 1mm thick. Lay the sheet on your work surface.
Cut and shape. Using a 1½-inch round cookie cutter, punch out circles from the sheet. Scraps from the first round can be re-rolled once; anything rolled twice is better saved for tagliatelle, where the slightly drier dough won't matter. For each circle: wrap it around your index finger, press one side outward to meet the other at a diagonal angle, then use both thumbs and index fingers to splay the bottom open into a little standing funnel. Set each shaped imbutini on a parchment-lined tray. Repeat until all the dough is used.
Prep the sauce components. Finely grate the Parmigiano on the smallest holes of a box grater (or use a high-speed blender to pulse the wedge into a fine powder). Add the cheese to a large bowl. Cut the cold butter into small cubes and add to the same bowl. Have the chili crisp nearby and ready.
Cook the pasta. Salt a large pot of boiling water generously — it should taste pleasantly salty, more than you'd season a soup. Cook the imbutini until done to your liking, about 4–5 minutes. Before you drain anything, scoop out about a cup of pasta water and set it aside.
Make the sauce. Use a spider strainer to transfer the imbutini directly from the cooking water into the bowl with the butter and cheese. Add about ½ cup of the pasta water. Immediately toss and stir vigorously — the heat from the pasta melts the butter, the starch from the water binds everything together, and within a minute or two you have a glossy, coating sauce. Spoon in the chili crisp and fold it through. Taste and adjust salt. If the sauce looks tight, add another splash of pasta water and toss again.
Serve immediately in warm bowls, with extra grated Parmigiano on top if you want.
A Few Notes
On the butter: Use a high-fat European-style butter here. The higher fat content (82–84% versus the standard American 80%) makes for a noticeably silkier sauce. It matters in a dish where butter is the star. Using cold butter causes a thermal shock process to happen when the hot pasta hits it – creating a luscious texture.
On the Parmigiano: Aged 24–30 months gives you sharpness and depth without the gritty texture that older aged cheese can sometimes have in a melted sauce. Grate it finely — coarse grating leads to clumping.
On the chili crisp: Start with one tablespoon and taste. The heat builds, especially as the sauce coats the pasta. More is always an option.
On freezing: Fresh imbutini freeze beautifully. Arrange them in a single layer on a tea towel-lined tray, freeze uncovered for 20 minutes until hard, then transfer to a sealed bag with as much air removed as possible. Cook directly from frozen — no defrosting needed — and add 2–3 minutes to the cooking time. Keeps well for up to 2 weeks.
About Spice Witch Chili Crisp
Spice Witch makes small-batch, artisan chili crisps, honey, and oils in Asheville, NC (Our hometown, too!). Sabrina's chili crisp contains minimal ingredients without compromising on flavor — just avocado oil, garlic, ginger, shallots, and a warm spice blend for depth and heat. Although Chili Crisp isn't Italian in origin, I think Sabrina's products embody what a lot of Italian producers strive for: simplicity, clean ingredients, and just plain buono – good. You can find it at www.shopspicewitch.com
Have you made imbutini? We'd love to see them — tag us @qbcucina on Instagram.
Looking for more hand-shaped pasta to add to your repertoire? The qb Pasta Club is a monthly online community where we make a different Italian pasta shape together every month — live classes, professionally filmed videos, a full recipe, and a community of pasta makers to share it with. Join us here >