This February we’re all about Perfect Pairs. We’re diving in today with one of the questions we receive most frequently about making restaurant-quality pasta at home: “Does it matter which shape goes with which sauce?”
Spoiler alert: The answer is “Yes.”
In our cookbook, Flour + Water: Pasta, we touch on the tradition of why certain pasta shapes are synonymous with certain sauces (think: Bolognese + tagliatelle). In Italy, there’s a long lineage of regional or even city-specific dishes that pair pasta shapes with a designated sauce, couplings that are taken like gospel.
While we aren’t dogmatic about upholding these exact traditional pairings at our restaurants in San Francisco, we do champion the underlying rationale that the Italians have established. The shape is the tool for flavor, a conduit to soak up + deliver all that delicious sauce in its most ideal package. This is why we’re so obsessed with bronze-cut pasta – because the texture of the noodles allows more sauce to cling to all those delicious ridges + edges. And you can optimize that cling when your shape + sauce are in perfect sync.
There’s a lot of license to experiment with complex sauces + finishes with dried pasta, as you’ve likely noticed from the recipes on this site, but today we’re going to keep it simple with an overview of our favorite pairs for each shape.
Campanelle ❤️’s Pesto Genovese
Why: the ribbon-like ridges and interior crevices of campanelle (which translates to “little bell” in Italian) do such an amazing job of holding onto a textured pesto. Try this combo with some seasonal veggies and parmigiano like our Campanelle with Peas + Basil Pesto.
Also great: Any hearty, textured pan sauce. We love pairing this noodle with a butter-enriched sauce of mushrooms + hearty greens.
Penne ❤️’s Ragu Bolognese
Why: The small diameter of penne tubes excel at catching all that slow-cooked ground beef, while the tomato sauce clings onto the penne, inside and out. (For a meat-free alternative, penne arrabbiata is also a winner for packing in all that tomato goodness.)
Also great: Any baked pasta that calls for a tubular shape, and olive oil-based pasta salads
Spaghetti ❤️’s Aglio e Olio
Why: Pan sauces with too much texture tend to slide off spaghetti when you’re going for the perfect twirl. Spaghetti shines when it’s paired with simple sauces like this classic Italian chili & garlic olive oil-based pan sauce. (Stay tuned for a recipe soon!)
Also great: A white wine clam sauce, and cacio e pepe (check out our cheat version here)
Elbow Mac ❤️’s Cheese!
Why: There’s a reason elbow pasta is the most common shape for mac and cheese. The short noodles provide a ton of surface area which allows you to get the right ratio of mac to cheese sauce.
Also great: Mayonnaise-based pasta salad like this Classic Mac Salad, and soups like our Macaroni + Winter Vegetable Stew