How To Properly Pair Pasta with Sauces
There are so many different varieties of pasta out there. Penne, fusilli, tagliatelle, spaghetti, orecchiette and the list goes on…and on…and on. Whether they look like bowties, little seashells or corkscrews, the options seem endless! So how do you know which pasta is best to use with the sauce that you’re making?
And does it even make a difference if you were to use say farfalle or orecchiette instead of spaghetti for your marinara?
Well yes actually, it does. That’s because the different pasta types were made for good reason and serve a subtle but crucial role in making the hero of your dish (the sauce!) shine.
Below you’ll find a simple guide helping you to match the sauce you’re making with the appropriate variety of pasta. This guide will not only tell you which pastas pair with which sauces but also explain WHY, so that you can understand the match. You can refer to this handy one page guide whenever you need a refresher on the perfect pasta and sauce pairings! :)
PASTA PAIRING GUIDE
A long, thin and round pasta, like spaghetti, linguine or vermicelli is perfect for pairing with a lighter, more delicate sauce which can bind to and coat all of the strands evenly. Generally this would be a light tomato, cream or oil based sauce.
Heavier tomato and cream sauces go better with flat, long pastas like fettuccine, tagliatelle and pappardelle, that are still delicate in texture but are able to hold a richer sauce.
With it’s twists and grooves, fusilli is fantastic for gripping pesto sauces
Scoop shaped pastas like orecchiette are great for holding the small, chunky components of vegetable based and finer meat sauces.
Hearty meat and/or loaded vegetable sauces with larger chunks and a heavier, thicker consistency like bolognese, pair nicely with tubular pastas such as penne and rigatoni that can capture and hold the sauce in their hollows as well as varieties like pappardelle, fusilli, farfalle and shell pasta shapes which can likewise handle the heft and weight of the sauce, with enough bite not to be overwhelmed by it as a finer pasta would.
The ruffles, twists and ridges in some of these varieties are also designed to help the pasta to properly hold a thicker, more textured sauce without it slipping off.
Example:
For this spaghetti marinara recipe, the marinara sauce is more smooth than textured and mostly comprised of tomato rather than varied meat or vegetable chunks, so the lighter, delicate sauce best suits a thin, long noodle like spaghetti.
REMEMBER
As a general rule:
Delicate, thin noodles = lighter, smoother sauces
Wider, thicker pastas with ridges and curves = heavier, textured sauces
If this guide helped you understand how to better pair your pastas and sauces, please leave a comment below - I’d love to hear from you! :)