Ditali
dee-TAH-lee
Short straight tube, as long as it is wide.
7 mm across, 1 mm wall
Name. From ditale, thimble.
What it is
Ditali are short straight tubes about a centimetre long and nearly as wide, smooth or ridged. Ditalini, the small grade, is the classic pasta for pasta e fagioli and minestrone, and ditali is the same shape a size up.
They cook in the soup and are eaten with a spoon.
How to cook ditali
8 to 11 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 ditali. 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
Short and open at both ends, so they fill with soup and hold beans and vegetables. They also work in a thick tomato sauce for children and in a cold salad. Too small for a ragu.
Pairs with: Pasta e fagioli · Pasta e ceci · Minestrone · Pomodoro · Pasta salad
Classic plates: Pasta e fagioli, Pasta e ceci, Ditali con le patate.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
1 brand, 2 product pages.
| Brand | Product | No. | Cook |
|---|---|---|---|
| La Molisana | Ditali | 45 | 8 min |
| La Molisana | Ditali Rigati Pasta | 47 | 8 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 ditali
4 ditali products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States, Libya, France. Of those, 1 are gluten-free.
Brands: Schär (1), Barilla (1), DeLallo (1), George Delallo Co Inc (1), Colavita Usa Llc (1).
No ditali? 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
Ditalini, coralli, denti di cavallo, denti di vecchia, ditaletti, ditali lisci, ditali rigati, ganghi di vecchia, gnocchetti di ziti, magghietti (Apulia and Sicily), tubetti, tubettini.
Sources
- Ditali, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Ditali Rigati Pasta, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: typical dried, brand pages.
- Photograph: Ditali zoom.png, 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.
- ditalini, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.