Let’s Make ‘Rigatoni Molinari’ With Jersey’s Own Julia Molinari!

Viral TikToker Julia Molinari is known for her cooking demos and interesting recipes. While she often shares unique pizza recipes, she sometimes also shares an authentic Italian recipe.

Molinari recently took to TikTok to share a family recipe for rigatoni that includes mini-meatballs and home-grown cherry tomatoes.

In a recently shared video on TikTok, Molinari shares a family recipe that enticed many to watch.

“I feel like sharing a home recipe. Rigatoni, little tomatoes, little meatballs, and little buffalo mozzarella,” she said as she prepped all her ingredients. “Breadcrumbs, you want a lot. It’s gonna make it taste good. Just measure with the heart.”

She then added some cheese as she said, “You also want a lot of cheese, in my opinion.” Anyone who’s watched Molinari’s previous cooking demo videos knows she loves a good amount of parsley in her meals. So as she chopped her fresh parsley, she told people to “do whatever you want, your meatballs, not mine.”

After adding the parsley to the meat mixture in the bowl, Molinari added one egg.

“Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty,” she said. “They’re gonna get dirty.”

She then realized she forgot to add the salt, milk, and pepper and did so before forming her meat into small balls.

“I made a couple big ones to snack on,” she said. “We’re gonna fry these up.”

After frying up the mini-meatballs, Molinari shared that she picked the cherry tomatoes from her garden earlier in the day. She then cut each small tomato and sauteed them. Then it was time to make the rigatoni.

“Salt your water. I already salted it,” she said after she added the pasta to the boiling water.

After her pasta was ready to go, she assembled her tasty dish, adding in the mozzarella and some basil she picked from her garden.

“Tomatoes are so sweet,” she said after taking a bite. “Fresh, good, homegrown tomatoes make all the difference.”

Many viewers shared their thoughts in the comment section of the video.

“Jumo can cook. No joke. This is ‘great restaurant’ quality stuff. And music,” one person wrote. Another added, “I can’t wait for your cookbook; hint, hint.”

One viewer asked Molinari, “What Italian dish is ur fav Jumo?” to which she responded, “impossible question.”

When she’s not in her kitchen or her family’s restaurant kitchen cooking up something delicious, she’s often found at the Jersey shore enjoying the sand, sun, and water.

In a recently shared photo on Instagram, Molinari can be seen at what appears to possibly be a location down the shore in New Jersey. While she has the comments turned off on the post and simply captioned it, “spectacular,” many of her followers gave it a like.

Another recently shared post on Instagram shows Molinari rocking an oversized hat near a body of water captioned, “My only regret is not getting a bigger hat.” That post captured the attention of many, giving her photo more than 85,000 likes.

Molinari shared more inside information about her life with her fans in a video on TikTok.

“I’m from the Jersey Shore. I go to the beach with my friends every single day,” she said as she poured breadcrumbs into a pan. “I’ve been dancing since I was 2, and I started competitive dancing when I was like 9. Actually wanted to dance in college, but I ended up at Rutgers University, which was the most financially responsible decision.”

She also said that she learned how to cook while growing up in her family’s restaurant as a third-gen Italian, and said she shared her first cooking demo just for fun for her friends but it ended up blowing up weeks later.