Useful pasta guide: how to know which pasta to pair with the right sauce

The perfect match between pasta and sauce creates the hit. Sometimes the wrong choice of pasta can turn an excellent sauce to failure. It’s all about the marriage of the right shape of the pasta with the right sauce texture (depending on the components), and your dish is made in heaven!

The possible combinations of pasta and sauce are limitless. There are hundreds of shapes of dried pasta alone. I will go through the most commonly used.

Long thin pasta:

These long pasta needs lots of lubrication, they best go with olive oil based sauce and tomato sauce. Use capellini for the lightest sauces, this delicate noodles can’t support the meat sauce, which gets left behind in the bowl as the pasta gets eaten. Use linguine for seafood dishes and spaghetti for meat or vegetable sauces.

Astuce: When cutting vegetables or herbs for long pasta, cut them string-like rather than in cubes to help them blend better.

Thicker ribbons:

Thicker strands, like fettuccine and tagliatelle, can stand up to cream sauces and ragus. Ideally the wider the noodle, the thicker the sauce. Fettuccine and tagliatelle pair perfectly with butter and parmesan (alfredo sauce).

To differentiate: Tagliatelle is a little more fat than fettuccine.

Shaped pasta:

They pair well with all kind of sauces, especially they capture thick, textured sauces. Pieces of meat or vegetables nestle in the twists, dimples or folds…

Info: conchiglie means seashell, farfalle means butterfly and fusilli means spun.

Tubular pasta:

Goes well with sauces that are thick and chunky. Keep in mind to match chunks of meat or vegetables in a sauce to the diameter of the holes in the pasta. For example the tiny elbow won’t hold inside a chick pea and a rigatoni is too big for a simple tomato sauce!

Astuce: The tubular shape makes them ideal to retain sauces on the entire surface, inside and out, use elbow macaroni for mac & cheese and indulge in the creamy cheese taste with every bite!

Orzo pasta are meant for salads and soups.

And lasagne for baking in layers.

Tips to know:

Use plenty of water to ensure pasta cooks evenly and has room to move. Always keep stirring while cooking.
Bring the water to boil before adding the pasta.
Never add oil to the water while cooking pasta, it will prevent from absorbing the sauce, you should add plenty of salt (2 tablespoons per 4 liters of water). Don’t skip the salt: It’s the only opportunity to season the pasta itself.
Drain pasta when it is al dente (firm). It will keep cooking after it’s mixed with sauce.
Shake the colander to remove excess cooking water. Avoid rinsing pasta, which removes the starchy coating that helps the sauce adhere.

Recipes recommended from marmite et ponpon: