Fileja
fee-LEH-yah
Strip wound around a thin rod into a short irregular spiral.
Name. Calabrian dialect, from the thin rod, the dinaculu, used to shape it.
What it is
Fileja are the Calabrian coil: a strip of semolina dough wrapped around a thin rod and rolled so it becomes a loose hollow spiral about five centimetres long. They come from the Vibo Valentia area and are the pasta of 'nduja.
Maccheroni al ferretto and fusilli al ferro are the same technique elsewhere in the south.
How to cook fileja
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 fileja. 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 rough hollow coil for the spicy sauces of Calabria: 'nduja and tomato, a pork ragu, a goat ragu. The coil holds a thick sauce and the rough surface takes the fat.
Pairs with: Sausage ragu · Meat ragu · Pomodoro · Arrabbiata
Classic plates: Fileja alla 'nduja, Fileja con ragu di capra, Fileja al sugo di maiale.
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 fileja
3 fileja products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States, Etats Unis.
Brands: Caserecci di Calabria (1), Bella Italia (1).
No fileja? 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
filateddhi, filatelli, filej, fileja calabresi, filleda, fusilli avellinesi, maccaruni aru ferru, maccheroni al ferretto, ricci di donna.
Read more
Sources
- Cook time: fresh, by maker.
- Photograph: fileja.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.
- Fileja, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q48853185, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.