# Piadina romagnola Romagna's flatbread. Romagna, Emilia-Romagna. Pizza & Bread (Pizze e Pani). > Romagna's flatbread, protected since 2014: flour, water, salt and lard, rolled into a disc and cooked on both sides on a hot plate, as its PGI specification sets. - Level of proof: EU-codified (Disciplinare europeo). The dish itself is protected by an EU specification (TSG, PDO or PGI) that fixes how it is made. - Sources checked: 2026-10-26 - Published: 2026-10-26 - Page: https://nonnario.com/recipes/piadina-romagnola/ ## In short - Wheat or spelt flour, water, salt and lard or olive oil: no preservatives, flavourings or additives. - At most 250 g of fat and 25 g of salt for every 1 kg of flour, as the specification sets. - Flattened only by rolling, into a disc 15 cm–25 cm across and 4 mm–8 mm thick. - Cooked on both sides on a hot plate, turned again and again, for four minutes at most. Also called: piada romagnola, piada, Romagna flatbread. ## Where it comes from Piadina is the flatbread of Romagna, the eastern half of Emilia-Romagna, where it was long eaten in place of bread, which was scarce. The poet Giovanni Pascoli, who made the Romagnol word ‘piè’ into the Italian ‘piada’, called it ‘the national bread of the people of Romagna’. Since the 1970s it has been made and sold from small kiosks all over Romagna. It has been a PGI since 2014, and its specification, amended in 2022, fixes it: wheat or spelt flour, water, salt and lard or olive oil, divided into balls, flattened only by rolling, and cooked on both sides on a hot plate for four minutes at most. It recognises two types: the Piadina Romagnola, 15–25 cm across and 4–8 mm thick, and the thinner Piadina alla Riminese, 23–30 cm across and up to 3 mm thick. The specification sets limits, not a household recipe; the quantities here are a home batch within them. - Defined by: European Union - Reference: PGI ‘Piadina Romagnola / Piada Romagnola’, Regulation (EU) No 1174/2014; specification amended by Regulation (EU) 2022/2264 ## Sources - [EU Official Journal C 278 of 20 July 2022: the application to amend the PGI, with the amended single document (EUR-Lex, Italian)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2022.278.01.0027.01.ITA) - [Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2264, approving the amendment (EUR-Lex, Italian)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32022R2264) - [Scatti di Gusto: piadina romagnola made at home, the traditional recipe (Italian)](https://www.scattidigusto.it/2021/06/04/piadina-romagnola-fatta-in-casa-ricetta-tradizionale-senza-errori/) - [Dissapore: piadina romagnola, the recipe (Italian)](https://www.dissapore.com/ricette/piadina-romagnola-la-ricetta-perfetta/) ## Ingredients For 4 servings, in metric units. - 500 g soft wheat flour, tipo 0 (plain flour) - 100 g lard (at room temperature) - 2 g bicarbonate of soda - 10 g fine salt - 260 ml lukewarm water (about: add it gradually) ## Equipment - A testo (a flat terracotta or cast-iron griddle) or a heavy pan with a flat base at least 25 cm across - Kitchen scale - Wooden board and rolling pin - Fork - A clean cotton cloth - Infrared thermometer (useful to check the heat of the plate) ## Method Hands-on 35 min, cooking 5 min, resting at least 30 min. About 1 hour 15 minutes: 15 minutes for the dough, 30 of rest, a few minutes to divide it while the plate heats, then 3–4 minutes on the plate for each of the 4 piadine, rolling the next one while each cooks. ### The dough 1. **Work the lard into the flour** (Hands-on 5 min). Put the flour and the bicarbonate in a large bowl, add the lard in small pieces and work it into the flour with your fingertips until no lumps of lard are left. Tip: The specification allows a raising agent such as bicarbonate up to 20 g per kilo of flour; both household recipes use 2 g for 500 g. 2. **Add the salted water and knead** (Hands-on 10 min; follows the official text). Dissolve the salt in the lukewarm water. Pour it in a little at a time, mixing, until the dough comes together; you may not need all of it. Turn it out onto the board and knead for about 10 minutes, until smooth and firm. Check: Smooth, firm and no longer sticky: a finger pressed in leaves a dent that fills slowly. Tip: Knead only until smooth: the specification warns against working the dough too long. 3. **Rest the dough** (Rest 30 min). Cover the dough with a damp cloth, or wrap it in film, and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes. It relaxes and rolls out without shrinking back. ### Rolling and cooking 4. **Divide into balls** (Hands-on 3 min; follows the official text). Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces, about 215 g each, and roll each into a smooth ball. Keep the balls covered while you roll the first. 5. **Heat the testo** (Cooking 5–8 min; 200–250 °C; heat: high, then medium). Heat the testo or pan, dry, over high heat for about 5 minutes, then lower it to medium, so the surface stays at about 200 °C–250 °C. Check: On a metal pan, a drop of water beads up and skates across the surface instead of sizzling away. On terracotta, which can boil a drop away even when very hot, check with the infrared thermometer. Tip: The original specification of 2014 cooked at 200 °C–250 °C; the amended one allows anything from 150 °C to 300 °C. 6. **Roll out a disc** (Hands-on 2–3 min; follows the official text). While the testo heats, roll the first ball on a lightly floured board into a disc about 22 cm–25 cm across and 4 mm–5 mm thick, turning it a quarter turn every few strokes so it stays round and even. Roll each of the others while the one before it cooks, so the discs never wait stacked and stick together. Check: An even thickness of 4 mm–5 mm all over, with no thin spots. Tip: It need not be perfectly round: the specification describes an irregular round, and a hand-rolled piadina never is. Tip: For a neat edge, trim it around a plate with a knife or a pastry wheel. 7. **Cook, turning often** (Hands-on 12–16 min; follows the official text). Lay a disc on the dry, hot surface. After about a minute bubbles rise: prick them with a fork. Turn it, and keep turning it every 30–40 seconds, pricking any new bubbles, until both sides are ivory with amber spots, 3–4 minutes for each piadina. Check: Amber spots on both sides, no pale, raw patches, and it smells of fresh bread. Tip: The specification allows four minutes on the plate at most: longer and the piadina dries out. 8. **Keep them warm** (Hands-on 1 min). As each piadina is done, stack it in the folded cloth, so it stays soft and warm while you cook the rest. 9. **Serve** (Hands-on 2 min). Serve hot, cut into wedges, or filled and folded over, the two ways the specification describes. ## Good to know - Keeping: Once cool, wrapped in film, it stays soft for a couple of days (paper dries it out); reheat it for about a minute a side. Raw or part-cooked, it freezes with foil between the discs: take them out and cook them directly on the testo or pan. ([source](https://www.scattidigusto.it/2021/06/04/piadina-romagnola-fatta-in-casa-ricetta-tradizionale-senza-errori/)) - Variant: Piadina alla Riminese: The specification's thin type: 23 cm–30 cm across and up to 3 mm thick. ([source](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2022.278.01.0027.01.ITA)) - Variant: With olive oil: Olive oil or extra virgin olive oil in place of the lard, as the specification allows, within the same limit of 250 g per kilo of flour: about the same weight as the lard, 100 g for this batch. ([source](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2022.278.01.0027.01.ITA)) - Variant: With spelt flour, milk or honey: Since 2022 the specification also allows spelt flour, up to 300 ml of milk and up to 20 g of honey per kilo of flour. ([source](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=uriserv:OJ.C_.2022.278.01.0027.01.ITA)) ## Common mistakes - Pressing the dough flat. The specification allows flattening only by rolling, by hand or by machine. - Working the dough too long: knead only until it is smooth. - Leaving it on the plate too long. Four minutes in all is the specification's limit. ## Cooking it outside Italy - If you cannot find good lard, the specification itself allows olive oil or extra virgin olive oil, within the same limit of 250 g per kilo of flour: about the same weight as the lard, 100 g for this batch. - Use a plain soft wheat flour (all-purpose in the US, plain in the UK), not a strong bread flour. --- From Nonnario, the documented recipes of Italy: https://nonnario.com/recipes/piadina-romagnola/. Cite the recipe's page and the month its sources were checked; for the official text itself, cite the document listed under its sources.