Pasta Database

Sicily · vegetable · chunky

Best pasta for norma

Fried eggplant, tomato, ricotta salata, basil. Sicilian. It needs a wide tube or a short shape to carry the eggplant.

Region
Sicily
Base
Vegetable
Texture
Chunky
Shapes that hold it
6
Classic plates
6
Norma, served on pasta

What it asks of a shape

Norma is a chunky vegetable-based sauce. It wants a tube, so the sauce rides inside as well as outside, a wide shape with mass, to stand up to a heavy sauce, and a short shape, speared with the pieces on the same fork. 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, tomato sauce, eggplant, ricotta salata, olive oil, garlic, basil
Place of origin
Sicily

Pasta alla Norma, also called pasta con le melanzane, is a pasta dish made from eggplant. It is typical of Sicilian cuisine, from Catania in particular. In the Sicilian language, it is known as a pasta cu sucu di mulinciani, pasta ca sassa e mulinciani and pasta câ Norma. It is made of penne or other pasta with tomato sauce, covered with slices of fried eggplant and served with grated ricotta salata cheese and often basil.

6 shapes that hold it

Busiate, uncooked, on linen

Busiate

Hand-formed · Sicily

A long loose coil with a bore, so it holds a thick pesto in every turn: trapanese, pistachio, or a Norma-style eggplant sauce.

Penne lisce, uncooked, on linen

Penne lisce

Tubes · Liguria

Without ridges, sauce clings less to the outside, so penne lisce suits smooth sauces that fill the bore: tomato, a light cream, the Sicilian Norma, or a baked dish where the cheese does the holding.

Casarecce, uncooked, on linen

Casarecce

Short shapes · Sicily

A trough down the middle and a slight twist, so it carries pesto, ricotta, sausage crumbs, and a chunky vegetable sauce.

Paccheri, uncooked, on linen

Paccheri

Tubes · Campania

The huge bore traps whole pieces of squid, sausage, or braised meat and the flattened tube carries sauce on both faces.

Rigatoni, uncooked, on linen

Rigatoni

Tubes · Lazio

The widest bore of the everyday tubes, so pieces of sausage, eggplant, or braised meat ride inside it.

Penne, uncooked, on linen

Penne

Tubes · Liguria

The bore carries sauce inside and the ridges hold it outside, so penne takes any sauce with body: arrabbiata, vodka sauce, a vegetable ragu, cream with peas and ham, and the oven.

Classic plates with norma

Every dish in the shape profiles that names this sauce, with the shape it is made on.

Every classic plate, by shape and sauce

Sources

  • The ranking and the sauce notes are our editorial judgement, from the traits in each shape record. See the method.
  • Pasta alla Norma, Wikipedia (summary, ingredients, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikidata Q548521.