Cavatelli
kah-vah-TEL-lee
Small dumpling with a hollow, rolled under two fingers.
Name. From cavare, to hollow out. Twenty-eight regional names, including cavatieddi, capunti, and cecatelli.
What it is
Cavatelli are small rolled shells: a piece of semolina dough pressed and dragged under two or three fingers so it curls into a hollowed shape with a rough outside. They are found across the south, from Molise and Puglia to Sicily, under dozens of local names.
Frozen cavatelli became a staple of Italian-American kitchens in the twentieth century, and the American version is often made with ricotta in the dough.
How to cook cavatelli
8 to 12 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
8:00
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 cavatelli. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 7 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 dense chewy shell with a hollow, so it carries a ragu, broccoli or greens with garlic, a sausage sauce, and beans. The rough face holds oil and cheese.
Pairs with: Broccoli and anchovy · Sausage ragu · Meat ragu · Cime di rapa · Pomodoro
Classic plates: Cavatelli e broccoli, Cavatelli al ragu, Cavatelli con fagioli, Cavatelli alla crudaiola.
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 cavatelli
14 cavatelli products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States. Of those, 3 are organic.
Brands: Georgia Peach Products Inc (1), Manicaretti Inc (1), Italian Village (1), Gac Srl (1), Bartolini (1), Whole Foods Market (1), Whole Foods Market Ip Lp (1).
No cavatelli? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look. Full substitute list.
Side by side
Easy to confuse with
Orecchiette
Hand-formed · Puglia
small domed disc, rough on the outside, dragged over the board with a knife
Malloreddus
Hand-formed · Sardinia
small ridged shell, rolled over a basket or a ridged board, often saffron-yellow
Capunti
Hand-formed · Puglia
long cavatelli dragged with three fingers, like an open pea pod
Gnocchi
Hand-formed · All of Italy
small soft dumpling of potato and flour, often ridged on a fork
Other names
'ncatenate, Cortecce, a variety of cavatelli from Apulia, cantaroggini, capunti, cavasuneddi, cavatelle, cavatieddi, cavatielle, cavatuneddi, cazzarille, cecatelli, cecatelli/cicatelli, cecatidde, cingule, ciufele (Molise), gnocchetti, gnocculi (Sicily), gnucchitti, manatelli, mignuicchi, minuich, orecchie di prete, pincinelle (Marche), pizzicarieddi (Apulia). Pictured is dry capunti, rascatelli, strascenate, strascinati, tagghjunghele (Apulia and Campania), truoccoli, zinnezinne (Basilicata).
Sources
- Cook time: typical dried; fresh 5 to 8 min.
- Photograph: Cavatelli.jpg, Luigi Scorcia, CC BY 2.0.
- 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.
- Cavatelli, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q19959, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.