Pasta is well-loved around the world for its versatility. It’s cheap and very accessible, making it the perfect dish for a college student on a budget or a tired employee looking for a quick dinner. Just cook up some pasta, pour some sauce, add a bit of this and that, and presto—a well-balanced meal that can be ready in under 30 minutes!
And the fun doesn’t stop there. Pasta comes in all shapes and sizes. Having a variety of pasta shapes in your cupboard ensures that you’ll never get bored of eating it. You’ll also find that different pasta shapes work better than others for different sauces, ingredients, recipes, and so much more.
There are hundreds and hundreds of pasta shapes out there, but for this article, we’ve just compiled a list of the ten most common ones. We hope you have fun experimenting with them and consider taking a shot at using other pasta shapes not on the list!
1. Spaghetti
Spaghetti is undoubtedly the most popular type of pasta in the world! They are thin, long, and straight noodles that are incredibly versatile—they work with just about any type of sauce. They also pair great with meat and vegetables because it’s easy to pick up. You can twirl your spaghetti on the fork and then lock everything in with a bite of meat or vegetable.
As you can see below, spaghetti carbonara is one of the best dishes to use spaghetti. It only takes eggs, bacon, and parmesan cheese to make this classic Italian dish. Another amazing seafood dish that features spaghetti is spaghetti alle vongole!
2. Penne
Another popular pasta shape is the penne, which looks tubular and has ridged edges. The ends of the penne are cut diagonally so the entire thing looks sleeker and more slanted.
Penne is preferable for pasta sauces that are very thick and creamy. The sauce goes inside the tube, so you can pick up a good bit of it every time you take a bite. If your sauce is runnier or more watery, it won’t hold as well, and you’ll likely end up with a ton of leftover sauce on your plate by the end of your meal.
This pasta shape is the best one for pasta bakes.
3. Lasagna
Contrary to what you may believe, lasagna doesn’t refer to the dish of pasta, ground meat, bechamel sauce, and ricotta cheese itself. Rather, it’s the name of the pasta sheets that you use to layer the dish. When uncooked, lasagna sheets are wide and flat beside the edges, which look frilled.
As you may have already guessed, lasagna sheets work best with Monica Geller’s famous lasagna. Just make sure not to overpack a single layer—while the sheets are thick, they’re not going to hold anything too heavy without falling apart. It’s best to have multiple, thin layers and not a couple of thick ones.
4. Ravioli
Ravioli are little pillows of yummy goodness. They’re pretty much the Italian version of a dumpling in that they can be filled with just about anything from cheese to meat to seafood to vegetables and so much more. Since most of the flavor is contained within the pasta, you won’t even need much sauce to coat it—you can simply drizzle some olive oil or even eat it just as is.
However, why would you do that when you can have double the trouble with some sauce? For example, this spinach and cheese ravioli below is slathered in a creamy, cheesy sauce. Who could say no to extra cheese, after all?
5. Fettuccine
Fettuccine is similar to spaghetti but is flatter. It’s definitely strange how such a small feature can make it seem more appealing. Indeed, while spaghetti is seen as basic and run-of-the-mill, fettuccine is classy and luxurious. Think about it, if you were at a fancy restaurant, would you rather have a pasta dish made of spaghetti or with fettuccine? The choice seems obvious!
Because of the added surface area, fettuccine is awesome for lighter sauces of any kind.
6. Rigatoni
Speaking of similar pasta shapes, the rigatoni is pretty similar to penne too! However, instead of the slanted cut edges the penne has, rigatoni’s edges are straight. They’re also a lot bigger, thicker, and wider, giving the rigatoni a box-like appearance.
Much like the penne, they’re great for thicker sauces as they can really soak and pick up more of that deliciousness. You should also take advantage of the rigatoni’s size by making the sauce chunkier with bigger bits of meat and vegetables. It’s nice biting into rigatoni with a little surprise in the middle!
7. Macaroni
While undoubtedly of Italian origins, macaroni has become immortalized because of the good ol’ classic comfort food, mac and cheese. This pasta shape is much smaller than the penne and rigatoni and is also curved to look like C’s or elbows.
Like its bigger counterparts, macaroni can hold sauce well on its own, but you and I both know that’s not where the macaroni truly shines. Macaroni is often used for soups like minestrone, salads like chicken macaroni, or otherwise shoved in an oven dish for a hearty casserole.
8. Farfalle
Also known as bowtie or butterfly pasta, the farfalle has a squished middle that fans out on either side, hence the names. If you’re not a fan of overcooked or mushy pasta, then farfalle might be the one for you. Since it’s thicker in the middle, it has a little more bite than usual.
While farfalle is relatively small, it actually has considerable surface area because of its ‘wings’. It pairs well with thicker sauces that can get picked up easily.
Farfalle is also one of the few pasta shapes that taste great cold. In the image below, you can see that this pasta shape works very well with Greek or Mediterranean salad.
9. Fusilli
This fun-looking pasta looks like corkscrews! Though they look small, all those tight spirals make it very easy for sauce and ingredients to get stuck and make each bite more flavorful. Thus, fusilli are very good for lighter sauces as even the runniest of sauces can get caught in the crevices. You also want to make sure the sauce is not too chunky so you can have little bits and pieces of meat and veggies too.
Just like the farfalle, fusilli makes lovely additions to any cold salad too.
10. Cannelloni
Last but not least on the list is a type of pasta that’s a strange mix of lasagna and rigatoni—the cannelloni! These huge cylinders of pasta can be filled with meats, cheese, and vegetables. Then, it’s covered with more sauces (tomato sauce or pesto sauce works great) and topped with cheese before being baked in the oven.
Because of how big they are, one cannelloni is more than enough for a serving. However, it’s hard to have just one when they’re so addicting to eat!
