DeLallo Pasta Shapes: FAQ
How many pasta shapes are there?
There are over 400 pasta shapes in existence: long cuts, short cuts, stuffed pasta, soup cuts (known as pastina), etc. Each cut has its own unique use in the kitchen, from hollow sauce-capturing shapes to long tendrils perfect for coating with olive oil sauces.
How do I make shaped pasta?
Pasta shapes can be categorized based on how they are formed: by-hand, rolled into sheets or extruded.
Pasta shapes formed by-hand are made by rolling pasta dough into a long rope and then cutting the rope into equal sized dough pieces. From there, the dough is formed into shapes like orecchiette and gnocchi.
Another method of forming pasta shapes is by rolling out the dough and cutting it into sheets. This method is used to make shapes such as ravioli, lasagna noodles, tagliatelle and spaghetti. While shapes like ravioli, lasagna and wider pasta noodles can be cut by-hand, shapes like spaghetti and linguine are typically run through die cutters.
The third method of forming pasta shapes is by extrusion. This method for forming pasta is via extrusion. Dough is forced through a die, where the shaped pasta comes out the other end and is cut to whatever length the pasta calls for. There are many dies that are used to create different shapes. Hollow dies used for shapes like elbows, penne and rigatoni. Spiral-shaped pasta, like cavatappi, is made by dies that have angled slots that cause the dough to spin as it is extruded.
DeLallo uses traditional bronze dies to extrude pasta, which gives it a rougher surface texture for capturing sauces. Some pasta brands use Teflon. While Teflon is faster, it gives noodles a slippery surface resulting in an inferior pasta that won’t allow sauces to stick.
What are the most popular pasta shapes?
In the U.S. and quite possibly the whole world, Spaghetti is by far the most popular pasta shape. In fact, it is so much so that people often use the word “spaghetti” to stand in for any cut of pasta. Next up, is the versatile short cut, Penne.
What are the most popular pasta shapes in Italy?
The most popular pasta shape in Italy depends on where you are in the country! Like we noted in the specific cuts, each region is famous for its own unique pasta. In Northern Italy, soft wheat (made into type 00) and potatoes reign, so gnocchi and heartier egg pasta is popular. (Eggs are used to strengthen the pasta when soft flour is used.) Hard durum wheat grows in Central and Southern Italy, so semolina pasta is most common. These cuts include Orecchiette, Casarecce, Spaghetti alla Chitarra and many more.
While it’s hard to know which pasta shape is the most popular overall, the top cuts are certainly Spaghetti, Penne and Tagliatelle.
How are pasta varieties categorized?
- Long (Pasta Lunga)
- Short (Pasta Corta)
- Tube
- Stuffed (Ripiena)
- Cooked In Broth (Pastina)
- Stretched (Strascomato)
- Dumpling-Like (Gnocchi/Gnocchetti)
- Special Shape
