What Is Pasta and How Can I Use It?

Spaghetti is the long, thin, cylindrical pasta that turns the simplest ingredients into a meal. It belongs to the dried wheat pasta family, made from durum wheat semolina mixed with water and pushed through metal dies.

The shape is not arbitrary. Long round strands let a sauce cling along their whole surface instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl, which is why spaghetti suits clingy, emulsified sauces more than chunky ones.

The name comes from the Italian spago, a length of string or twine, with spaghetti meaning little strings. Drying was the innovation that made it travel: fresh pasta cooks in a few minutes and spoils, while dried spaghetti cooks in about ten and keeps for years.

Elbow macaroni is a short, curved tube of pasta, bent into a C and usually no more than an inch long. The shape is the whole point: the curve and the hollow center trap sauce, while the small size makes it easy to eat with a spoon or fork.

That hollow, spoon-sized shape is why elbows became the default pasta for two American classics, macaroni and cheese and macaroni salad. Most boxes are plain durum semolina, the same dough as spaghetti, just cut and curved differently.

Lasagna noodles are wide, flat sheets of pasta, the broadest shape on the shelf. They are not made to be sauced and twirled. Instead they are layered, stacked between sauce, cheese, and filling, then baked into the casserole that shares their name.

A standard dried sheet runs about two inches wide and seven or eight long, often with a ruffled, wavy edge. That ruffle is not just decoration: the ridges grip the layers above and below so the stack holds together when you cut it.

Fettuccine is a long, flat ribbon of pasta, roughly a quarter inch wide. The name means "little ribbons" in Italian.

That broad, flat surface is the difference from a round strand like spaghetti: it gives a sauce far more pasta to cling to.

That extra surface is exactly why fettuccine is the classic partner for rich, clingy sauces rather than thin tomato ones. It is the pasta of fettuccine Alfredo, and it carries cream, butter, and cheese better than almost any other shape.

Couscous looks like a grain but is not one. It is tiny pellets of pasta, made by rolling moistened durum wheat semolina until it forms small balls, which are then dried.

That detail matters in the kitchen, because it explains why couscous cooks in minutes and behaves like a soft, fluffy pasta rather than a chewy grain like rice or barley.

It is the staple starch of North Africa, with Morocco and Algeria at its heart, where it is traditionally steamed over a simmering stew and served as the base of a whole meal.

Three sizes turn up on shelves. Fine Moroccan couscous is the quick-cooking kind most boxes contain. Larger pearl couscous, often sold as Israeli couscous, is toasted and chewier. Lebanese moghrabieh is larger still.

Linguine is a long, flat strand of pasta, narrower and flatter than spaghetti but not as wide as fettuccine. The name means "little tongues" in Italian, a nod to its slightly oval cross section.

That flattened shape is the whole point. It gives a sauce more surface to cling to than a round strand, while staying light enough for the seafood and oil sauces it is famous for.

Linguine is believed to have come from the Campania and Liguria coast, which is why it pairs so naturally with clams, shrimp, and pesto.

Penne is a short, straight pasta tube cut on a diagonal at both ends, so each piece comes to two sharp points. The name comes from the Italian word for a quill pen, which the angled cut resembles.

It is one of the most useful shapes to keep in the pantry.

Two versions sit on most shelves. Penne rigate has shallow ridges running down the outside; penne lisce is smooth. The ridged kind is the one most cooks reach for, because those grooves and the open tube grab sauce instead of letting it slide off.

Pasta shells, called conchiglie in Italian after the seashells they resemble, are short curved pieces of durum wheat pasta. The outer surface is ridged and the inside is a hollow, cupped pocket.

The small and medium sizes are the everyday workhorses. There is enough of a pocket to trap sauce, and they are small enough to eat by the spoonful.

That hollow shape is the whole point. The ridges grip thick sauces and the cup scoops up whatever small solids are in the dish, so each bite carries sauce and filling instead of leaving it pooled at the bottom of the bowl.

Angel hair, known in Italian as capellini d'angelo, is the thinnest of the long pasta strands. Each round thread is barely thicker than a wire, which is exactly what makes it so quick to cook and so easy to overcook.

It is round in cross section like spaghetti, just spun far finer. That delicacy decides everything about how you sauce and serve it.

Orzo is a small pasta cut to look like a large grain of rice or a fat barley kernel. That is where its name comes from: orzo is the Italian word for barley.

It is just durum semolina and water, the same dough as spaghetti, pushed through a die and cut into little tapered ovals about the size of a pine nut.

Because it cooks fast and stirs easily, orzo straddles two worlds. It behaves like a grain in salads and pilafs, yet it is pure pasta, so it turns creamy when you cook it risotto-style. That double identity is why it shows up in so many dishes here.

Farfalle is the pinched-center pasta shaped like a small bow tie or butterfly. The Italian name means butterflies, while in English-speaking kitchens it usually goes by bow-tie pasta. Each piece is a flat rectangle gathered tight in the middle, so the two wings stay thin while the center stays plump.

That split personality is the whole charm: a tender ruffled edge and a chewier knot in one bite.

It is a friendly, recognizable shape, which is part of why it turns up so often in family dinners and kids' meals.

Vermicelli is a thin wheat-pasta strand whose name means "little worms" in Italian. In Italy it is a round strand slightly thicker than spaghetti, while in the United States the same label usually means a strand thinner than spaghetti, close to angel hair.

Either way, this is the wheat-flour pasta. Do not confuse it with rice vermicelli, the translucent Asian rice noodle used in spring rolls and stir-fries; that is a different ingredient that soaks rather than boils.

One quirk sets wheat vermicelli apart: it is often broken into short pieces and toasted before cooking, which gives it a nutty flavor and golden color.

Rotini is a short pasta wound into a tight, springy spiral with sharp, well-defined ridges. The name comes from the Italian for small wheels or twists. It looks like a corkscrew that has been pressed flat into a helix, with deep grooves spiraling along its whole length.

Those grooves are why rotini is a pasta-salad favorite: they trap dressing and small bits of vegetable in every twist.

People often mix it up with fusilli. The difference is in the twist; rotini has a tighter, more angular spiral, while fusilli winds looser and rounder.

Ziti is a medium-width pasta tube with straight, square-cut ends and a smooth outer wall. It is wider than penne and longer, and the classic version has no ridges.

The name comes from a southern Italian word for bridegrooms, since the pasta was once served at wedding feasts in Campania and Sicily.

Most cooks meet ziti in one dish above all others: baked ziti, the American-Italian casserole of tubes, tomato sauce, and melted cheese.

Rigatoni is a large, wide pasta tube with deep ridges running the length of its outside and straight, square-cut ends. It is bigger around than penne and ziti, and its mouth stays open rather than tapering. The name comes from the Italian rigato, meaning ridged or lined.

That combination of size and grooves makes it one of the best sauce-catchers in the pasta drawer.

Fusilli is a short pasta twisted into a tight corkscrew, like a spring or a piece of rope wound around itself. The name comes from fuso, the Italian word for spindle, the tool whose spiral the shape echoes. Each piece has open spiral grooves along its length.

Those grooves are the whole trick: they catch and hold sauce, dressing, and small bits of vegetable far better than a smooth shape can.

A close cousin, rotini, has a sharper, more angular twist; the two are often used interchangeably and are easy to confuse on the shelf.

Manicotti shells are large smooth pasta tubes, about four inches long and an inch wide, made to be stuffed with a soft filling and baked. The name comes from the Italian for little sleeve, which is exactly what each tube looks like.

In the United States, manicotti almost always means this dried tube. It sits in the same family as cannelloni, and the two are close enough that recipes routinely use the names interchangeably.

Rotelle is the wagon-wheel pasta, a small round disc with a hub in the middle and short spokes running out to a thin rim. The name comes from the Italian for little wheels, and most American boxes sell it as wagon wheel pasta.

The gaps between the spokes are open windows, not solid pasta.

Those open spokes are the trick. Sauce, peas, and small bits of vegetable lodge in the gaps and the hub, so a forkful holds more than its size suggests.

It is also the pasta kids reach for first, which makes it a quiet workhorse in family kitchens.

Jumbo pasta shells (conchiglioni) are the big version of conchiglie, scaled up to roughly two inches long with a wide cupped mouth.

Each one is large enough to spoon a filling into. That is the only reason this size exists.

Unlike small shells that go into soup and salad, jumbo shells are a baking pasta. You par-cook them, stuff each shell, line them in a baking dish, sauce them, and bake until bubbling.

Spinach fettuccine is the green version of the flat fettuccine ribbon, with cooked spinach worked into the dough. The spinach is there mostly for color, turning the noodle a soft jade green.

What it adds in flavor is subtle. There is a faint vegetal, grassy note, but most of the taste is still wheat and egg, so do not expect the noodle to taste like a plate of greens.

Treat it as plain fettuccine, just dyed green. It cooks and behaves exactly the same.

Spaghettini is thin spaghetti, the name being the diminutive of spaghetti. The round strand sits right between regular spaghetti and the much finer angel hair, and cooks a touch quicker than the standard noodle.

That middle ground is its strength. It has more delicacy than spaghetti but more backbone than angel hair, so it handles a brighter, lighter sauce without going limp.

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If your pasta water turns into soup with a few short tubes bobbing in it, odds are good you're looking at ditalini. The name means "little thimbles" in Italian, and that shape is the whole point: small enough to ride a spoon, hollow enough to grab a little broth on the way up. This is the pasta in pasta e fagioli, the one your grandmother (or somebody's grandmother) put in minestrone.

Whole wheat pasta is dried pasta made from the whole durum grain, with the bran and germ left in instead of milled out. That single change is why it looks tan rather than pale gold, and why it tastes nutty and faintly earthy with a firmer bite.

It also brings fiber. A serving has roughly three times the fiber of refined pasta, which is the main reason cooks reach for it.

Treat it as a flavor and texture swap, not a different food. It cooks like whatever plain shape it copies, from spaghetti to penne to elbows.

Capellini is a very thin, round strand of pasta whose name means "little hairs" in Italian. For most cooks it is the same thing sold as angel hair, and the two trade in freely.

If there is any difference, it is grade. True angel hair is the very finest version, capellini d'angelo, while plain capellini can run a hair thicker. In a home kitchen the distinction rarely matters.

Treat them as one pasta.

Fresh pasta is made from a soft dough of flour and egg, rolled out and cut while pliable, then cooked within a day or two. It comes off a pasta machine or out of the store's refrigerated case. The alternative is the dried, shelf-stable kind in a box.

The difference comes down to the dough and the moisture. Fresh pasta is usually built on egg, which gives it a tender, silky bite and a pale yellow color. Most dried pasta is just durum semolina and water. Because it skips the drying step, it needs only a brief boil.

That softness is the whole appeal. Fresh noodles drink up butter and cream sauces and wrap around a filling without cracking, which is why ravioli and tortelli are almost always made fresh.

Corkscrew pasta is the short, twisted spiral shape you probably know as rotini or fusilli: a little helix of durum semolina that looks like it was wound around a pencil. Cavatappi (the hollow, tighter corkscrew) belongs to the same family.

The twists are the whole point. Those grooves and ridges trap sauce and small bits of meat or vegetable in every spiral, which is why corkscrew is one of the best shapes for clinging sauces and for pasta salad.

Tricolor pasta is a single box mixing three colors of the same shape, most often rotini or fusilli spirals. The plain pasta is gold, the green is tinted with spinach, and the red or orange comes from tomato or beet.

The colors are the whole point. All three pieces taste nearly the same, since the spinach and tomato are added in small amounts mostly for looks, with only the faintest vegetable note behind the wheat.

Treat it as plain pasta that happens to be three colors. It boils the same and pairs the same; the difference shows up on the plate, not on the palate.

Pasta twists are short, spiraled pasta shapes. The name is the catch-all for the corkscrew and helix family that includes fusilli, rotini, gemelli, and spirelli.

This is a sturdy, everyday shape, not one specific cut.

The spiral is the whole point. Those grooves and curls trap sauce, oil, and small bits of meat or vegetable, which is why twists carry chunky sauces far better than a smooth strand or a flat ribbon.

Whole-wheat macaroni is the small curved elbow shape made from whole durum wheat instead of refined flour. It is the same tube of pasta you reach for in mac and cheese, only tan and nuttier, with more fiber from the bran left in the grain.

The shape is unchanged: a short hollow elbow that scoops up sauce and bakes into a casserole well. What the whole grain changes is flavor and bite, not the form.

Expect a firmer chew and an earthy, slightly nutty taste that stands up to bold and cheesy dishes better than plain elbows do.

Orecchiette are small, dome-shaped pasta discs, each one pressed thin in the middle with a thicker, slightly rougher rim. The name is Italian for "little ears," which is exactly what they look like.

They come from Puglia, the heel of southern Italy, where they are traditionally made by hand from just durum wheat and water (no egg). A cook drags a thumb or a knife across a bit of dough and flips it inside out, leaving a cupped center.

That cupped shape is the whole reason this pasta is so useful. The little bowl scoops up sauce and beans, and the rough surface holds onto everything else.

Cannelloni are wide pasta tubes, usually around four inches long, designed to be filled and baked. The name means large reeds in Italian, and that is roughly the shape: smooth hollow cylinders ready for a soft stuffing.

In Italy cannelloni are often made from fresh pasta sheets rolled around the filling. The boxed dried tubes sold in most supermarkets are the convenient stand-in, and they bake the same way.

Alphabet pasta is a tiny dried pasta stamped into the shapes of letters, each piece only a few millimeters across. It belongs to the pastina family, the category of very small pasta meant for soup and for small children rather than for a plate of noodles under sauce.

The letters are the whole appeal. They turn a bowl of soup into something kids will actually eat, and plenty of adults have a soft spot for them too.

Past the novelty, the shape behaves like any small soup pasta: it cooks fast and thickens broth slightly as its starch leaches out.

Conchiglie piccole is the small size of conchiglie, the ridged, cupped seashell pasta. "Piccole" is Italian for "little," so the name simply means small shells: short curved pieces of durum wheat with a hollow pocket and a ridged outer surface.

The shape does the work. Each little cup scoops up sauce and small solids, while the ridges grip whatever coats them, so a bite carries flavor instead of leaving it at the bottom of the bowl. This small size is made to eat by the spoonful, not to stuff.

Spirelli is a short spiral pasta, the springy little corkscrew shape sold under that name mostly in German and central European markets. On a North American shelf the same shape goes by fusilli or rotini.

It is ordinary durum semolina pasta, sometimes made with spinach or tomato for a tri-color mix. The tight spiral and its ridges are what matter: they grab onto dressing and sauce and hold small bits of vegetable in every twist.

Spinach lasagna noodles are the wide flat sheets used to build lasagna, with cooked spinach worked into the dough to turn them green. They are the green version of plain lasagna sheets, used the same way and for the same job.

The spinach is mostly for color. It tints the pasta deep green and adds only a faint vegetal note, so the dish looks greener but does not taste markedly of spinach.

In a baked lasagna the green often hides under sauce and cheese. The sheets earn their keep most in lighter, whiter builds where the color shows at the edges.

Egg pasta is pasta whose dough is bound with whole eggs instead of plain water. The eggs add fat and protein, so the cooked noodle is richer and more tender than pasta made from semolina and water alone, with a deeper yellow color.

It is the northern Italian style, the dough behind tagliatelle and lasagne sheets.

In practice "egg pasta" and fresh pasta overlap almost completely, since the classic fresh dough is an egg dough.

The difference is one of emphasis: egg pasta names the ingredient, while fresh pasta names the state. You can also buy dried egg pasta in a box, where the egg is still there but the noodle has been dehydrated and keeps for months.