Filini
Smaller version of fideos, about 12–15 mm long before cooking.
Name. Little threads. From filo, a thread.
What it is
Filini are very short, very thin threads of pasta. They are a cut-down version of capellini or fideos. Wikipedia gives a length of 12 to 15 mm before cooking. De Cecco makes them from durum wheat semolina and lists a 3 minute cook time. La Pasta di Aldo makes an egg version 2 mm wide. Granoro sells them as cut cappellini.
No source names a region of origin. Filini are a soup pasta. They go into light broths, chicken or vegetable soup, and thick creamy soups. Brands suggest croutons or julienne vegetables in the bowl. Cooked and dressed with butter and grated cheese, they make a simple pastina.
How to cook filini
3 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
3:00
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 filini. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Or cook it in the broth it will be served in, and do not drain it.
- Bite a piece at 2 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.
What it is served with
Pairs with: In brodo · Minestrone
Classic plates: Pastina in brodo.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
2 brands, 2 product pages. Cook times run from 3 to 6 minutes across brands, so read the box, not a rule.
| Brand | Product | Cook |
|---|---|---|
| De Cecco | Filini n° 181 | 3 min |
| La Pasta di Aldo | Filini | 6 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.
No filini? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look.
Other names
capellini tagliati, cut cappellini.
Sources
- Filini n° 181, De Cecco (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Filini, La Pasta di Aldo (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- De Cecco shop, Filini n° 181 (profile: origin, form, use)
- La Pasta di Aldo, Filini (profile: origin, form, use)
- Piccolo's Gastronomia, Granoro Cut Cappellini (Filini) No. 107 (profile: origin, form, use)
- Wikipedia, List of pasta (profile: origin, form, use)
- Cook time: De Cecco Filini n° 181: 3 min.
- Photograph: Filini.jpg, Stilfehler, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- 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.
- Filini, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.