Lazio · cheese · medium
Best pasta for carbonara
Egg yolk, pecorino, guanciale, pepper. A silky coating with crisp pieces of pork. Long strands or a ridged tube, both are Roman.
- Region
- Lazio
- Base
- Cheese
- Texture
- Medium
- Shapes that hold it
- 7
- Classic plates
- 3
What it asks of a shape
Carbonara is a medium cheese-based sauce. It wants a long strand, so the sauce coats every turn of the fork, ridges, because the sauce has body and needs a grip, and a tube, so the sauce rides inside as well as outside. The ranking below scores every profiled shape on those traits, then the shape's own sauce notes break the ties.
What it is
- Main ingredients
- Pasta (usually spaghetti), guanciale (alternatively pancetta), pecorino romano, eggs, black pepper
- Place of origin
- Lazio
- Also called
- Pasta alla carbonara
Carbonara is a pasta dish made with cured pork, hard cheese, eggs, salt, and black pepper. It is typical of the Lazio region of Italy. The dish took its modern form and name in the middle of the 20th century.
7 shapes that hold it
Mezze maniche
Tubes · All of Italy
Short and wide, so each piece fills with sauce: carbonara, gricia, amatriciana, a sausage ragu.
Spaghettoni
Long strands · Campania
A thick strand releases more starch and stays firm longer, so it suits the Roman cheese sauces that need starchy water to come together.
Tonnarelli
Long strands · Lazio
A porous square strand grips a cheese emulsion like nothing else, which is why Roman trattorias serve tonnarelli cacio e pepe.
Bucatini
Long strands · Lazio
The bore takes in sauce, so bucatini wants a sauce with more body than a strand normally takes: amatriciana, a gricia, a tomato with guanciale, a loose ragu.
Mezzi rigatoni
Tubes · All of Italy
As rigatoni, with a shorter tube that fills more easily: sausage ragu, amatriciana, a chunky vegetable sauce, the oven.
Rigatoni
Tubes · Lazio
The widest bore of the everyday tubes, so pieces of sausage, eggplant, or braised meat ride inside it.
Spaghetti
Long strands · Campania
A strand has no cavity and no ridges, so a sauce must coat it.
Classic plates with carbonara
Every dish in the shape profiles that names this sauce, with the shape it is made on.
- Mezze maniche alla carbonaraMezze maniche
- Rigatoni alla carbonaraRigatoni
- Spaghetti alla carbonaraSpaghetti
Sources
- The ranking and the sauce notes are our editorial judgement, from the traits in each shape record. See the method.
- Carbonara, Wikipedia (summary, ingredients, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikidata Q876624.