Fettuccine
fet-too-CHEE-neh
Flat ribbon, 6 to 8 mm wide.
7 mm wide, 1.1 mm thick
Name. From fettuccia, a small ribbon or tape, itself from fetta, a slice.
What it is
Fettuccine is the Roman ribbon: a flat egg pasta cut about seven millimetres wide, a shade narrower and thicker than the tagliatelle of Bologna. Fresh, it is rolled and cut by hand; dried, it is sold flat or in nests.
Rome gave the world fettuccine Alfredo, butter and parmesan whipped into the hot pasta at Alfredo alla Scrofa in the 1910s. The American version with cream is a different dish. In Rome it also carries a chicken-giblet ragu, fettuccine alla papalina, and porcini.
How to cook fettuccine
3 to 12 minutes in boiling salted water. Al dente at 10 minutes, fully cooked at 12.
10:00
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 fettuccine. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Fresh pasta has no dry core. It is done when it is tender, not when it resists.
- 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 ribbon has a broad flat face, so butter, cream, and cheese emulsions coat it evenly and a ragu rides on top. Egg dough makes it porous enough to absorb. It is too soft for a sharp oil sauce, and too wide for broth.
Pairs with: Alfredo · Meat ragu · Porcini · Cream sauce · Butter and sage
Classic plates: Fettuccine Alfredo, Fettuccine alla papalina, Fettuccine ai funghi porcini, Fettuccine al ragu.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
6 brands, 13 product pages. Cook times run from 3 to 14 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 | Fettuccine no. 6 | 6 | 11 min, al dente 10 | ||||
| Rummo | Fettucce | 15 | 10 min | 260 mm | 5.8 mm | 1.3 mm | |
| Rummo | Fettuccinenests | 89 | 6 min | 350 mm | 8 mm | 1.05 mm | |
| Rummo | Fettuccine All'Uovoegg | 94 | 3 min | 4.25 mm | 0.8 mm | ||
| Garofalo | Fettucce | 15 | 13 min | Gragnano PGI · 454 g box | |||
| Mancini | Fettucce | 8 min, al dente 6 | 260 mm | dried 23 h at 43 to 55 °C | |||
| Barilla | Fettuccine | 13 min, al dente 12 | |||||
| Barilla | Fettuccinegluten-free | 14 min, al dente 13 | |||||
| La Molisana | Fettuccine | 5 | 13 min | ||||
| La Molisana | Fettuccelle Saporite N.5extra di lusso | 5 | 13 min | ||||
| La Molisana | Fettuccine Biologicheorganic | 5 | 13 min | ||||
| La Molisana | Fettuccineartisan line | 104 | 10 min | ||||
| La Molisana | Fettuccine N.204 All'Uovoextra di lusso | 204 | 5 min |
Nutrition
Per 100 g of fresh 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 | 288 kcal | 11.3 g | 54.7 g | g | 2.3 g | 26 mg | 3.4 mg |
| Cooked | 131 kcal | 5.2 g | 24.9 g | g | 1.1 g | 6 mg | 1.1 mg |
One portion. 100 g dry becomes about 220 g cooked, 288 kcal and 11 g of protein. Pasta takes on 2.2 times its weight in the pot.
Who makes fettuccine
187 fettuccine products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States, France, Australia. Of those, 16 are gluten-free, 19 are organic, 7 are made in Italy.
Brands: New World Pasta (7), Barilla (4), Al Dente Inc (4), Liviva (4), Shoprite (3), Divella (3), Al Dente (3), Severino Pasta Mfg (3), Whole Foods Market (3), Rainbow (2).
No fettuccine? 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
Lasagnette, fettucce, fettuccelle, ramicce, sagne.
Read more
Semolina versus egg dough: the two doughs of Italian pasta
The difference between durum semolina pasta and egg pasta: flour, water, eggs, where each is made, how each cooks, and which sauces each dough wants.
Fresh versus dried pasta: neither is better, they are different foods
The difference between fresh and dried pasta: dough, texture, cook time, storage, and which shapes and sauces belong to each.
Sources
- Fettuccine no. 6, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettucce, Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettuccine (nests), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettuccine All'Uovo (egg), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettucce, Garofalo (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettucce, Mancini (cook time, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettuccine, Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettuccine (gluten-free), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettuccine, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettuccelle Saporite N.5 (extra di lusso), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettuccine Biologiche (organic), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettuccine (artisan), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Fettuccine N.204 All'Uovo (extra di lusso), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: De Cecco no. 6 (dried): 12 min; fresh egg 3 to 4 min.
- Photograph: Fettuccine.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 169727, Pasta, fresh-refrigerated, plain, as purchased; FDC 169728, Pasta, fresh-refrigerated, plain, cooked), public domain. The cooked yield is derived from the two energy figures.
- Fettuccine, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q20032, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.