Pasta is a popular food in many different cultures. There are lots of different kinds, like long noodles and small, filled shapes. Each type of pasta goes best with a certain sauce.
Matching them up right can make your meal taste even better. But with so many pasta choices, it can be hard to know which one to use with each sauce. Luckily, pasta expert and chef Meryl Feinstein, author of Pasta Every Day: Make It, Shape It, Sauce It, Eat It, shares her insights on creating the perfect pasta-sauce pairing.
In this guide, we’ll explore the best pasta shapes for every type of sauce, ensuring you make the most delicious meals possible.
Perfect Pasta-Sauce Pairings
Long Pasta: Best for Light Sauces
When you think of classic pasta dishes, long, twirlable noodles like spaghetti, linguine, or bucatini often come to mind. These thin, delicate strands are ideal for lighter, oil-based sauces like aglio e olio (garlic and oil) or fresh pesto. The pasta’s thinness allows it to coat evenly with the sauce, creating a harmonious blend of flavors without overwhelming the palate.
Chef Feinstein explains, “Delicate pasta pairs well with delicate sauces.” She recommends using long pasta for cream-based sauces like fettuccine Alfredo or white wine cream sauces, which can cling nicely to the noodles without overpowering them. To enjoy a traditional Italian dish, try using trenette or trofie with pesto for an authentic pairing.
Feinstein recommends using wider, flat noodles like pappardelle or tagliatelle for thick sauces like a meaty ragu or Bolognese. These wider noodles can hold the sauce’s pieces of meat well, giving a good mix of flavors in every bite.
Short Pasta: Ideal for Chunky Sauces
Short pasta shapes like rigatoni, penne, farfalle, and orecchiette are great for heartier, chunkier sauces. Their sturdy texture and tubular shape allow them to catch ingredients like chunks of vegetables, meat, or thick, creamy sauces. Short pasta also works well in baked dishes and pasta salads because it maintains its texture even after sitting or being reheated.
Feinstein notes that short pasta is excellent for Italian-American favorites like vodka sauce or Alfredo sauce, as its tube-like shape can hold onto the sauce inside and out.
For macaroni and cheese lovers, elbows or small shells work best, providing the perfect canvas for the creamy cheese sauce to shine.
Pastina: Best for Soups
When making soup, the type of pasta you use is important. Small pasta shapes like orzo, ditalini, and stelline work well in brothy soups. It’s best to choose pasta that can easily fit on a spoon when making soups. Small pasta shapes go well with the broth and other ingredients, making it easy to eat.
Additionally, small-filled pasta like tortellini is a fantastic choice for heartier soups, where the filling can bring extra richness to the broth.
Filled Pastas: Match the Sauce to the Filling
The type of sauce you use should complement the filling when it comes to filled pasta, such as ravioli, tortellini, or agnolotti. For simple cheese or meat fillings, tomato-based sauces work wonderfully because the acidity helps cut through the richness of the filling. Chef Feinstein recommends pairing these filled pasta with tomato sauces to balance the flavors.
Lighter butter-based sauces like brown butter and sage are better choices for more complex fillings like butternut squash, mushrooms, or pumpkin.
These sauces allow the filling’s flavors to take center stage without competing for attention. “If you’re experimenting in the filling department or using bolder flavors, butter sauces are great because they’re glossy and delicious but take a back seat to the filling,” Feinstein explains.
Baked Pastas: Use Sturdy Shapes
For baked dishes like lasagna or baked ziti, you’ll want to use pasta that can withstand being cooked twice—first boiled and then baked. Use tube-shaped pasta like ziti or rigatoni and lasagna sheets because they stay firm when baked. The pasta soaks up the sauce & cheese, making a tasty meal.
Feinstein also suggests using potato gnocchi for baked dishes, as they are resistant to high heat and maintain their chewy texture.
Final Thoughts:
While traditional pasta pairings exist for a reason, Chef Feinstein reminds us not to stress too much about finding the “perfect” match. “If you have the ingredients for meat sauce but don’t have any of the shapes you typically put with it, just use what you’ve got. Don’t overthink it,” she advises.
When making spaghetti with marinara or trying a new recipe, the shape of the pasta you choose can make your dish even better. Keep these tips in mind for your next meal & explore the tasty world of pasta in all its varieties!