Fusilli lunghi
foo-ZEEL-lee LOON-ghee
Long hollow strand twisted into a loose spiral.
Name. Fusilli, from fuso, spindle, plus lunghi, long. The dried version is usually fusilli lunghi bucati, long pierced fusilli.
What it is
Fusilli lunghi is a long strand wound into a corkscrew, hollow in the dried version and made by wrapping dough around a thin rod in the hand-made one. It looks like a telephone cord and eats like a bucatini with more grip.
It comes from the south and from Campania in particular, where the hand-rolled version is fusilli al ferretto and the dried version is fusilli lunghi bucati.
How to cook fusilli lunghi
10 to 13 minutes in boiling salted water. Al dente at 8 minutes, fully cooked at 13.
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 fusilli lunghi. 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
The spiral traps sauce in its coils and the bore takes some inside, so it carries more than a plain strand. Tomato with meat, a sausage ragu, a chunky vegetable sauce.
Pairs with: Ragu napoletano · Sausage ragu · Pomodoro · Amatriciana
Classic plates: Fusilli lunghi al ragu, Fusilli bucati con salsiccia.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
2 brands, 2 product pages. Cook times run from 10 to 12 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 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mancini | Fusilli Lunghi | 10 min, al dente 8 | 70 mm | 12 mm | dried 22 h at 36 to 55 °C | |
| La Molisana | Fusilli Lunghi Bucatiartisan line | 308 | 12 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 fusilli lunghi? 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
fusilli lunghi bucati, fusilli bucati lunghi, long fusilli.
Sources
- Fusilli Lunghi, Mancini (cook time, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Fusilli Lunghi Bucati (artisan), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: typical dried, brand pages.
- 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.
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.