Capellini
kah-pel-LEE-nee
Very fine round strand, under 1 mm.
0.9 mm across
Name. From capello, hair, with the diminutive -ini. Fine hairs. Capelli d'angelo, angel hair, is the finest grade.
What it is
Capellini is the thinnest dried strand in regular production, under a millimetre across, and it cooks in two to four minutes. Angel hair, capelli d'angelo, is the same idea a shade finer, and both are often sold coiled into nests so the fragile strands survive the box.
It overcooks in the time it takes to drain the pot, so it is a shape for people who stand at the stove. Traditionally it went into broth or was served with the lightest oil or butter dressing.
How to cook capellini
2 to 4 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
2:00
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 capellini. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 1 minute. 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
There is almost no mass to carry sauce, so the sauce must be nearly weightless: butter, lemon, a splash of oil, a raw tomato, a little broth. Anything with body clumps the strands into a mat.
Pairs with: Lemon and butter · Aglio e olio · In brodo · Pomodoro
Classic plates: Capellini al limone, Capelli d'angelo in brodo, Capellini with cherry tomatoes.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
6 brands, 12 product pages. Cook times run from 2 to 6 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 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| De Cecco | Angel Hair no. 9 | 9 | 2 min | |||
| De Cecco | Angel Hair Nests no. 209 | 209 | 2 min | |||
| Rummo | Capellini | 1 | 3 min | 260 mm | 1.25 mm | |
| Rummo | Capelli D'Angelonests | 106 | 4 min | 1 mm | ||
| Garofalo | Capellini | 2 | 4 min | 454 g box | ||
| Garofalo | Capellini Spezzati | 22 | 4 min | |||
| Mancini | Capellini | 4 min, al dente 3 | 260 mm | 1.2 mm | dried 22 h at 36 to 46 °C | |
| Barilla | Angel Hair | 5 min, al dente 4 | ||||
| Barilla | Angel Hairprotein | 6 min, al dente 4 | ||||
| La Molisana | Capellini Pasta | 17 | 3 min | |||
| La Molisana | Capellini Spezzati | 60 | 4 min | |||
| La Molisana | Capelli D'Angelo Pastaartisan line | 100 | 3 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 capellini
32 capellini products are catalogued, most of them sold in France, Germany, United States. Of those, 4 are organic, 4 are made in Italy.
Brands: Barilla (5), Carrefour (2), Granoro (2), Panzani (2), Soubry (2), 166 (1), 43122 Parma Italy (1), Auchan (1), Auchan Production (1), Barilla Barilla G e R Fratelli Societa Per Azioni Via Mantova (1).
No capellini? 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
Angel Hair, Capelli d'angelo, angel hair, barbine a nido, bassetti, cabellos de angel, capelli d'angelo, capellini d'angelo, capellini fini, capelvenere, cappellini, fedelini, fidelini, ramicia, sopracappellini, tagliolini a nido, vrimiciddi.
Sources
- Angel Hair no. 9, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Angel Hair Nests no. 209, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Capellini, Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Capelli D'Angelo (nests), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Capellini, Garofalo (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Capellini Spezzati, Garofalo (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Capellini, Mancini (cook time, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Angel Hair, Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Angel Hair (protein), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Capellini Pasta, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Capellini Spezzati, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Capelli D'Angelo Pasta (artisan), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: De Cecco no. 9 (angel hair): 2 min.
- Photograph: Capelli angelo.jpg, Popo le Chien, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- 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.
- Capellini, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q20029, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.