Happy National Pasta Day! Today we celebrate our favorite noodles. Traditional in Italian cuisine, pasta has made its way across the globe and become a staple in pantries far and wide. With so many styles and varieties to choose from pasta can quickly become complicated. In spirit of the holiday, we decided to break down the different types of pasta and how to make sure you’re choosing the right cut.

Long Cuts: Let’s start with the long cuts. In this category we have many favorites such as, spaghetti, linguine, fettucine, and capellini. Longer pasta works well with light olive oil as well as heavy meat sauces. Bolognese sauce benefits fettucine and Mafalda, while spaghetti and linguine are complimented nicely by a lighter olive oil or tomato sauce. Capellini and angel hair pasta work with simple butter or cream sauces, as heavier options will break down these finer strands.

Short Cuts: Now onto short cuts, such as penne, rigatoni, farfalle, or orecchiette. Shorts cuts are prepared for heavier, chunky sauces. They stand up in ragus and vegetables sauces as their ridges and edges capture the flavoring. It all comes down to choosing a sauce that gets caught up in the ridges of your pasta. For example, Italian sausage crumbles fit nicely into rigatoni, while tiny vegetables get trapped in the corkscrew style of fusilli.

Soup Cuts: Finally, soup cuts like orzo, ditalini, acini di pepe, and stelline. Also known as, pastina, soup cuts range from small tubes to tiny grain-shaped noodles, perfect for scooping with a spoon. Not only are these examples delicious in soup, but they’ve evolved into popular additions in pasta salads as well as side dishes.

For more information on different pasta varieties and how to use them visit our website. Hopefully we’ve put you on the path to National Pasta Day success. We recommend giving any of these cuts a try to celebrate the occasion. For all your pasta needs, visit your local store or shop with us online.

Mangia!