Pairing Pasta with Perfect Sauce

You may not think about it every time you open a box of pasta, but the shape you choose plays an important role in the outcome of the dish. The right shape can make a good sauce great; the wrong shape can dampen the appeal of even the best sauce.

Long or short, smooth or ridged, thick or thin, with or without curves and crevices, different shapes of pasta capture and absorb sauce differently. Matched correctly—rigatoni with a hearty sausage sauce—and you have a hit, a pleasing interplay between the texture of the pasta and the components of the sauce. In this case, the pieces of sausage are captured in the hollow of the pasta. Matched less well—the same meat sauce paired with capellini (angel hair pasta)—and you get the vague sense that something is wrong. I say vague, because this kind of mistake is not always apparent; the food may look good and smell good, but it just doesn't come together well. In the case of the capellini, the delicate noodles can't support the meat sauce, which gets left behind in the bowl as the pasta gets eaten.

While spaghetti Bolognese is one of the world's most well-known pasta dishes, it is fundamentally inauthentic. Italian cooks would seldom serve a thick, saucy ragu with thin pasta ribbons - they're far more likely to team such a sauce with large shells or tubes to capture the sauce, or thicker long pasta, like tagliatelle and pappardelle. 

So what pasta goes with what sauce?

Pasta shape	Such as...	Serve with...
Long and skinny	Spaghetti, linguine, fusilli lunghi, vermicelli	Light seafood sauces, cream- or oil-based sauces.
Long ribbons	Tagliatelle, pappardelle, fettuccine, mafaldine	Rich, meaty sauces.
Shells	Conchiglie, lumache	Heavy cream or meat sauces; large ones can be stuffed.
Twists	Fusilli, trofie, strozzapreti, caserecce, gemelli	Lighter, smoother sauces which will cling to the twists, such as pesto.
Tubes	Penne, rigatoni, macaroni, paccheri	Hearty vegetable sauces, or baked cheese dishes. Also good with Bolognese or ragu.
Mini shapes	Orzo, fregola, canestrini, stelline	In soups and stews or as pasta salads.
Filled pasta	Ravioli, tortellini, cappelletti	As the filling contains lots of flavour, these are traditionally served with a light butter or oil sauce.

Generally, the larger shapes work better with thick, robust sauces, while skinny shapes, like strands of delicate vermicelli, suit light, cream sauces. 

From different sources.