Calamarata
kah-lah-mah-RAH-tah
Wide short smooth ring, the shape of a squid ring.
27.5 mm across, 1.4 mm wall
Name. From calamaro, squid. The ring looks like a sliced squid body.
What it is
Calamarata is a paccheri cut short, a wide smooth ring two or three centimetres across and about as long, made to look like a ring of squid. It comes from Naples and is often served with actual squid rings so the two are hard to tell apart on the plate.
Some brands tint it with squid ink for the effect.
How to cook calamarata
14 to 16 minutes in boiling salted water. Al dente at 14 minutes, fully cooked at 16.
14:00
Start when the water returns to the boil.
Water and salt
- Pasta, dry
- 400 g
- Water
- 4 L
- Salt
- 40 g
100 g per person as a main. A litre and 10 g of salt per 100 g. Adjust with the portion calculator.
The steps
- Bring 4 L of water to a full boil in a tall pot. Add 40 g of salt when it boils.
- Add the calamarata. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 13 minutes. A hairline of white at the centre is al dente.
- Scoop out a cup of the cooking water. Drain, or lift the pasta straight into the pan.
- Toss with the sauce over the heat for a minute. Add cooking water a splash at a time until it clings.
Read more: what al dente means and why the pasta water matters. Times for every shape are on the cook page.
How it holds sauce
A wide ring with a big bore, so it takes a seafood sauce with pieces: squid, prawns, clams in a light tomato. Also a Neapolitan ragu. It is too big for thin oil dressings.
Pairs with: Frutti di mare · Ragu napoletano · Pomodoro
Classic plates: Calamarata con calamari e pomodorini, Calamarata allo scoglio.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
5 brands, 6 product pages. Cook times run from 11 to 16 minutes across brands, so read the box, not a rule. A blank cell is a figure the brand does not state.
| Brand | Product | No. | Cook | Length | Width or Ø | Wall | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| De Cecco | Calamarata no. 129 | 129 | 16 min, al dente 14 | ||||
| Rummo | Calamarataartisan line | 141 | 13 min | 16 mm | 23 mm | 1.55 mm | |
| Garofalo | Calamarata | 20 | 15 min | Gragnano PGI · 454 g box | |||
| Mancini | Calamarata | 14 min, al dente 12 | 30 mm | dried 23 h at 36 to 55 °C | |||
| La Molisana | Calaramataartisan line | 314 | 12 min | ||||
| La Molisana | Calamarata Sublime N.314extra di lusso | 314 | 11 min |
Nutrition
Per 100 g of dry semolina pasta. The shape does not change these numbers. The dough does, so a whole wheat or egg version of this shape reads differently. See every dough.
| Per 100 g | Energy | Protein | Carbohydrate | Fibre | Fat | Sodium | Iron |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dry | 371 kcal | 13.0 g | 74.7 g | 3.2 g | 1.5 g | 6 mg | 3.3 mg |
| Cooked | 158 kcal | 5.8 g | 30.9 g | 1.8 g | 0.9 g | 1 mg | 1.3 mg |
One portion. 100 g dry becomes about 235 g cooked, 371 kcal and 13 g of protein. Pasta takes on 2.3 times its weight in the pot.
Who makes calamarata
4 calamarata products are catalogued, most of them sold in Germany, Ireland, United States. Of those, 1 are bronze die, 1 are made in Italy.
Brands: Sapori (1), Garofalo (1), Rummo (1), La Molisana (1).
No calamarata? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look. Full substitute list.
Side by side
Easy to confuse with
Other names
Calamari, anelli grandi, calamari pasta.
Sources
- Calamarata no. 129, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Calamarata (artisan), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Calamarata, Garofalo (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Calamarata, Mancini (cook time, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Calaramata (artisan), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Calamarata Sublime N.314 (extra di lusso), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: De Cecco no. 129: 16 min, al dente 14.
- Photograph: Calamari2.jpg, Popo le Chien, CC0.
- Open Food Facts (products, brands, labels), Open Database License, read on 2026-08-25.
- USDA FoodData Central (nutrition per 100 g, by dough: FDC 169736, Pasta, dry, enriched; FDC 169737, Pasta, cooked, enriched, without added salt), public domain. The cooked yield is derived from the two energy figures.
- Calamarata, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q22936428, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.