Dairy
Stracciatella
Stracciatella is the shredded pasta filata filling at the heart of burrata and also sold on its own: warm stretched cow’s-milk curd is torn into irregular rags (stracce) and mixed with fresh cream. The result is soft, spoonable, and richly milky, without a formed outer shell—essentially burrata’s interior as a standalone cheese. It is eaten very fresh with oil and vegetables, used to fill or top dishes, or packed as the core of burrata. Like other high-moisture fresh pasta filata products, it has a short shelf life and depends on clean milk and rapid cold-chain handling.
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Characteristics
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History
Apulian makers tore leftover spun curd into cream as a thrifty soft cheese that later became burrata’s signature filling.
Latticini shops in Puglia sold stracciatella by weight as well as sealed inside burrata pouches.
Chefs outside the south began plating loose stracciatella as a distinct fresh cheese, not only as burrata filling.
Packaged tubs of cow’s-milk stracciatella entered wider Italian and export chilled cabinets.
PGI attention on Burrata di Andria also raised recognition of stracciatella as the defining creamy interior.
Restaurant and retail demand treated stracciatella as a premium fresh pasta filata product in its own right.