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Ciceri e tria (pasta with chickpeas)

PAT · Prepared dishes · Puglia

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In brief

History and origin

Ciceri e tria, ciciri e tria in dialect, is considered the signature dish of Salento cooking, so much so that the regional record calls it an example of archaeological gastronomy. It is also known as massa di San Giuseppe, Salento-style lasagna with chickpeas or massaciciri, and it is listed among Puglia's traditional products.

It was a dish of poor families, made with ingredients that were easy to produce locally. Its roots, however, are very old: Horace, in his Satires, already recalls the pleasure of coming home to a dish of lagane and chickpeas, the lagane being strips of pasta. The name tria points to the Arabic itriyah, the long pasta that the geographer Idrisi described in Sicily in 1154, and further back to a Greek term used by Galen for doughs of flour and water.

It is the dish of 19 March, the feast of Saint Joseph, and a Salento saying recalls that the day never passes without chickpeas and pasta.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Ciciri e tria · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

Tria is a kind of wide tagliatella, thicker and sometimes irregular, kneaded by hand from wholemeal durum wheat flour and water, often with a little barley or spelt. The dough is worked until elastic, rolled out with a rolling pin and cut into strips.

The chickpeas are soaked for at least ten hours and then simmered for about two hours, with celery, carrot and onion as desired. Meanwhile the pasta is split in two: one part is boiled in salted water, the other is fried in olive oil and becomes the frizzuli, the crisp strips that are the hallmark of the dish.

At the end everything comes together in a wide pan with oil and garlic: first the chickpeas, some mashed to form a cream, then the boiled tria and the frizzuli. It is served at once, with a generous grinding of black pepper.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Ciciri e tria

How to recognise it

The dish is recognised by the contrast between two textures of the same pasta: the boiled strips, soft and coated in chickpea cream, and the fried ones, golden and crunchy, which are stirred in only at the last moment.

Tria is thicker and more rustic than an ordinary tagliatella, with the darker colour of wholemeal durum wheat flour, sometimes enriched with barley or spelt. Some chickpeas stay whole and others break down, binding everything together with no seasoning other than oil, garlic and black pepper.

The result is a hearty, simple one-dish meal born from a few local ingredients.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Ciciri e tria

In the kitchen

Ciceri e tria is a dish to eat freshly made: the regional record recommends serving it at once, because the frizzuli soon lose their crunch in the chickpea cream. It is brought to the table as a one-dish meal, seasoned only with freshly ground black pepper.

Its strongest bond is with the calendar: it is the traditional dish of 19 March, Saint Joseph's day, when in Salento it is a must on family tables. One of its names, massa di San Giuseppe, comes from this very feast.

The variations come mainly from the flour of the tria, which may include barley or spelt alongside durum wheat, and from the vegetables chosen for cooking the chickpeas.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Ciciri e tria

Where to taste it

Ciceri e tria belongs to the cooking of Salento, the southernmost part of Puglia, and that is where to look for it. Born as a dish of farming families, it is still made at home with hand-rolled tria, and the regional record considers it the very symbol of Salento cooking.

The best time to taste it is the feast of Saint Joseph on 19 March: the popular saying that ties that day to chickpeas and pasta shows how much the dish is part of the celebration. Visitors to Lecce and the villages of Salento at that time can look for it where traditional dishes are served, alongside other recipes of pulses and home-made pasta.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Ciciri e tria

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Where

Puglia

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