Which Pasta Shapes to Use When: A Definitive Guide

Short pasta? Long pasta? Pasta with holes? Which pasta shape is best? Well, that all depends on what kind of sauce you're working with.
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Alex Lau

You might be a penne person. You might be a spaghetti person. You might be the kind of person who declares allegiance to certain pasta shapes, be they short or long or curly or bowtie-y. But let us say this: if you’re using one pasta shape exclusively, for all your sauces, you’re messing up.

Don’t worry. We’re not going to send you to pasta prison. (Though, a prison built from pasta doesn't sound all that bad now that we think about it.) Or tell your parents. Or tax your carbonara. We’re just going to help your pasta game get stronger, because really, a stronger pasta game means a stronger life. It’s all about knowing which pasta shapes pair best with any given sauce, providing you with a beautifully-balanced bite every time.

You’ve experienced unbalanced bites before. Symptoms may include a giant pile of peas or pancetta or mushrooms at the bottom of your bowl, after all your long noodles have been forked and twirled and slurped. Or maybe a pool of white wine sauce or alfredo with no more angel hair to mop it all up. As a rule of thumb, you want to choose a pasta shape that will allow for every bite of pasta to include plenty of sauce as well as whatever ingredients—pieces of veggies, meat, nuts, anchovies, whatever—you chose to add to the dish. Here’s a general approach to make sure your pasta is every bit as delicious as it should be.

Michael Graydon & Nikole Herriott

How to Use Short Pasta

Short pasta is a pretty broad field, but it’s best described as pasta you stab with a fork rather than twirl. Penne, gemelli, fusilli, bowties and the like are all short pastas in our book. Short pasta is what you want when you have larger ingredients tossed in with the noodles and sauce, whether they be beans, roasted vegetables, or olives. They have nice nooks and crannies that help trap sauce, and since you're stabbing at the pieces of pasta anyways, you may as well stab whatever tasty chunks are hanging out in the bowl while you're at it.

Michael Graydon & Nikole Herriott

How to Use Hole-y Short Pasta

This is a subdivision of short pasta: one with holes. We’re talking stuff like rigatoni, shells, lumaconi, and penne, with voids in the pasta where small, flavorful, hard-to-stab things can make a home—think tiny green peas, toasted nuts, and briny capers. These little piece-y ingredients are all kind of hard to stab with a fork, but find their way into these hole-y short pasta shapes easily.

Linda Xiao

How to Use Long Pasta

The satisfaction of taking down a big fork of spaghetti or linguine is second-to-none. Slurping up that last noodle is nostalgic and fun, but it needs the right treatment to be perfect. Since you have to twirl (not stab), long pasta hates things like beans or chunky vegetables. Instead, opt for silky sauce that can coat noodles and catch little ingredients like ground meat or chopped herbs. Simple sauces like carbonara, bolognese, and alfredo are a long pasta’s best friend.

Nicole Franzen

How to Use Tiny Pasta

Even smaller than short pasta is tiny pasta (or pastina, for those in the scientific community). In this category, you’ll find spoon-able pastas like pearl couscous, orzo, and ditalini. Since you basically have to use a spoon to eat these things, they’re perfect for including in all the broth-y stuff, whether it be soup or a brodo-based pasta dish. If you’re going sans-broth, tiny pasta loves chopped herbs, blended nuts, greens, and other easily spoon-able additions.

Sure, it’s a general guide, but making shape-based decisions with your pasta adjuncts will make your life generally better. This isn’t about steadfast rules. It’s about learning, using that knowledge, and becoming the next international pasta guru. That’s your future. Embrace it.

And, while you're at it, embrace this rigatoni recipe: