THE PASTA GUIDE: WHICH SAUCES FOR EACH PASTA SHAPES?

If you are bewildered by the variety of pasta shapes available, let’s get your head around with our useful guide on numerous pasta’ shapes and compatible sauces below.

There are many different types of pasta, each with a distinct serving taste. When it comes to cuisine, the Italians are quite strict with their own protocol. If you want to try all kinds of pasta shapes, let Giovanni Rana guide you. Indeed, some shapes and sizes are better suited to keeping sauces in their ridges, while others are better suited to baked meals. Let’s look up the best sauces for each pasta shape in our Pasta 101 Dictionary.

  • Gnocchi – potato-based, thumb-sizing that can be flavored with everything from herbs to beetroot, cheeses.

Recommend: Paired gnocchi well with sauces based on tomatoes or creamy ones like pesto.

  • Ravioli – These fresh pasta pillows are filled with cheese to meat or even chocolate and are usually dipped in a sauce to go with them. 

Recommend: A variety of sauces, both light and heavy can be topped with ravioli or simply paired ravioli with butter and/or oil.

  • Spaghetti – the most well-known pasta shape (“a cord length”). A long thin piece of pasta, spaghetti is versatile and blends with a wide selection of sauces.

Recommend: Spaghetti is perhaps most known as a pair of tomato sauce and meatballs, but it might also be coupled with chunky sauces such as bolognese or light or cream sauces (such as carbonara).

  • Tagliatelle – These long, flat pasta strands generally have a width of approximately 1 cm.

Recommend: Tagliatelle is commonly used by Italians because it combines well with chunky sauces like bolognese and meatballs and makes decorating and handling on the table easier.

  • Tortellini — This fresh pasta is loaded with cheese or meat and the ends are squeezed together to resemble half-moons.

Recommend: Tortellini goes best with cream and strong buttery flavor.

Come and grab your favorite pasta and compatible sauce for a hearty family dinner at Annam Gourmet!