Which tomato sauce with garlic and red chili peppers is commonly served with spaghetti or penne?

Which tomato sauce with garlic and red chili peppers is commonly served with spaghetti or penne? Arrabbiata sauce is the answer.

Arrabbiata is a spicy Italian tomato sauce made with tomatoes, garlic, peperoncino or red chili pepper, olive oil and often parsley. It is most famously served with penne as penne all’arrabbiata, although its bold, simple flavor also works with spaghetti and other pasta shapes.

The sauce comes from Lazio, particularly Rome. Its name literally means “angry” in Italian, describing the heat that can make a diner’s face appear flushed. In Romanesco, arabbiato can describe something made excessively fiery. The sauce is therefore named for its character rather than for a particular ingredient.

Arrabbiata is not the same as ragù, which is a slow-cooked meat or vegetable sauce, nor carbonara, which is a creamy-style pasta preparation based on eggs, cheese and cured pork. The dish is relatively modern: its invention is generally placed in Roman cooking during the 1950s and 1960s, when spicy food was becoming fashionable.