About this site

Pasta Database is a reference for pasta shapes. It lists 181 shapes, 40 sauces, and 268 side-by-side comparisons. 114 shapes carry a full profile: measurements, cook time, the sauce logic, substitutes, and a portrait. The rest carry what the open sources give us and grow as we measure them.

Who makes this

A small group of pasta obsessives, led by a home cook who got tired of guessing. It started as a kitchen argument about which shape holds a ragù. That argument needed numbers, and the numbers were scattered across brand PDFs, Italian cookbooks, and half a dozen Wikipedia pages. So we put them in one place.

Nobody here is a chef with a restaurant. We cook at home, we measure the pasta in the box, and we read the sources carefully. That is the whole qualification. It means we write down what we can prove and we leave the rest blank.

Where the facts come from

Dimensions. Length, diameter, wall thickness, and width come from brand specification sheets and from boxes measured with calipers. Rummo and Mancini publish a spec sheet per shape, and the shape page prints each brand's figures in its own row. When brands disagree we print the range. When nothing is measured the field is blank. A blank beats a guess.

Cook times and catalogue numbers. From the brand's own product page, linked on every shape that has one. Agnesi, Altapasta, Barilla, Brundu, Centellino Selection, Dari, De Cecco, Garofalo, Giuseppe Cocco, La Campofilone, La Fabbrica della Pasta di Gragnano, La Molisana, La Pasta di Aldo, Mammarella (Francis Coppola), Mancini, Marcozzi di Campofilone, Marella, Pasta Cocco, Pastificio Di Martino, Pastificio Ferrari, Pastificio Graziano, Pastificio Setaro, Pastificio dei Campi, Rummo, Rustichella d'Abruzzo, Rustichella d'Abruzzo (Manicaretti importer page), Sardo Sole give us 415 product pages across 98 shapes.

Names, aliases, and origin. From Wikipedia's list of pasta and the Wikidata item for each shape, both linked in the sources block. 681 regional and brand names redirect to their canonical shape. Where a shape has a protected designation we say so.

Nutrition. Per 100 g, dry and cooked, from USDA FoodData Central, by dough. The shape does not change the numbers; the dough does. The cooked yield on each page is derived from the two energy figures, because energy does not change in the pot.

Who makes a shape. Product counts, brands, and labels such as gluten-free or Gragnano PGI come from Open Food Facts, a crowd database. A count there is a floor, never the market.

History and etymology. Cross-checked against Oretta Zanini De Vita's Encyclopedia of Pasta (University of California Press, 2009) and the brand histories. Folklore is labelled folklore.

Sauce pairings and substitutes. Our editorial judgement, built on one principle: a shape is a machine for holding sauce. Surface holds sauce outside, a cavity holds it inside, and mass decides how rich a sauce it can carry. Substitutes are ranked by that behaviour, not by looks.

When the sources disagree

They often do. An Italian regional cookbook, a brand spec sheet, and a Wikipedia article can give three different lengths for one shape. Our order is fixed: a measured box beats a brand spec sheet, a brand spec sheet beats a book, and a book beats an encyclopedia entry. When two good sources still disagree we print the range and say who says what. When we cannot settle it, the field stays blank.

Independence

Nothing here is sponsored. No brand pays for a placement, a pairing, or a ranking. Links to brand pages are there because they are the source. The "where to buy" links go to Amazon with our Associates id, and a purchase earns us a small commission. That money keeps the site free. It does not touch the data.

Corrections

A reference earns its keep by being corrected. If a measurement, a name, or an origin is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and note the change. A correction that names a source gets fixed first.

Licences

Text from Wikipedia is used under CC BY-SA 4.0 and marked where it appears. Wikidata is CC0. Photographs from Wikimedia Commons carry their own licence and credit in the caption. Nutrition figures are from USDA FoodData Central, public domain. Product counts and brand lists are from Open Food Facts under the Open Database License, and the page that uses them links back. Brand cook times, numbers, and dimensions are facts from the brand's own page, linked. Our own text and images are copyright 2026 Pasta Database.