Pasta Database

All of Italy · cheese · medium

Best pasta for four cheese

Gorgonzola, fontina, parmesan, and one more, melted into cream. Heavy. Gnocchi, penne, or a baked shape.

Region
All of Italy
Base
Cheese
Texture
Medium
Shapes that hold it
6
Four cheese, served on pasta

What it asks of a shape

Four cheese is a medium cheese-based sauce. It wants a tube, so the sauce rides inside as well as outside, ridges, because the sauce has body and needs a grip, and a dumpling, soft enough to take a sauce that melts over it. 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
gorgonzola, fontina, Parmigiano Reggiano, taleggio or pecorino, milk, cream, butter, nutmeg, black pepper

Four cheese is a cream sauce made by melting four cheeses together. Gorgonzola, fontina, and Parmigiano appear in most versions. The fourth is taleggio, pecorino, Gruyère, or Emmental. Cooks cube the soft cheeses and melt them in warm milk or cream over low heat, stirring to avoid lumps. Some start with a butter and flour roux. Nutmeg and pepper season the sauce. The grated hard cheese goes in last. The pasta is tossed in the pan and served at once, before the sauce sets.

The dish has no single regional home. Italian sources call it a classic cooked from north to south. One account traces it to mountain communities in the fifteenth century, who used aged cheeses to enrich their meals. Short ridged shapes such as penne rigate and rigatoni are the standard choice. The same cheese cream dresses gnocchi and risotto.

6 shapes that hold it

Gnocchi, uncooked, on linen

Gnocchi

Hand-formed · All of Italy

Soft, absorbent, and heavy, gnocchi need a sauce that is rich but not chunky: butter and sage, gorgonzola cream, a smooth tomato, pesto, a fine ragu.

Pizzoccheri, uncooked, on linen

Pizzoccheri

Ribbons · Lombardy

Buckwheat is crumbly and earthy, so the shape is built for one thing: butter, melting alpine cheese, and vegetables cooked in the same pot.

Cavatappi, uncooked, on linen

Cavatappi

Tubes · All of Italy

Three ways to hold sauce at once, so it takes cheese sauces, cream, pesto, dressings, and a light ragu.

Macaroni, uncooked, on linen

Macaroni

Tubes · Campania

A small smooth tube with a curve, so it holds a cheese sauce inside and a dressing in the bend.

Pipe rigate, uncooked, on linen

Pipe rigate

Tubes · All of Italy

A ridged cup with a bore, so it captures cream, cheese, and sauces with small pieces: peas and ham, sausage crumbs, a vegetable ragu, a thick tomato.

Radiatori, uncooked, on linen

Radiatori

Short shapes · All of Italy

Deep fins trap everything.

Sources