Macaroni
mak-ah-ROH-nee · Italian: Maccheroni
Short narrow smooth tube, straight or curved into an elbow.
6 mm across, 1 mm wall
Name. Maccheroni, from the Sicilian maccarruni, possibly from maccare, to crush. In Naples it once meant all dried pasta.
What it is
Macaroni is the English name for a short narrow tube. In Italy maccheroni was for centuries the general word for dried pasta from Naples, and the word still covers several smooth tubes. In English it means elbow macaroni: a short curved tube about five millimetres across.
Elbows are the pasta of macaroni and cheese and of macaroni salad. In Italy the straight version goes into soups and simple tomato sauces.
How to cook macaroni
7 to 10 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
7:00
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 macaroni. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 6 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
A small smooth tube with a curve, so it holds a cheese sauce inside and a dressing in the bend. Mac and cheese, pasta salad, minestrone. It has no ridges, so a thin oil sauce slides off.
Pairs with: Mac and cheese · Pasta salad · Minestrone · Pomodoro · Four cheese
Classic plates: Macaroni and cheese, Macaroni salad, Maccheroni al pomodoro.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
6 brands, 11 product pages. Cook times run from 5 to 13 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| De Cecco | Large Elbows no. 33 | 33 | ||||
| De Cecco | Elbows no. 81 | 81 | 5 min | |||
| Rummo | Elbowsgluten-free | 66 | 5 min | |||
| Garofalo | Elbows | 197 | 8 min | Gragnano PGI · 454 g box | ||
| Mancini | Maccheroni | 9 min, al dente 7 | 40 mm | 10.2 mm | dried 22 h at 36 to 55 °C | |
| Barilla | Elbows | 8 min, al dente 7 | ||||
| Barilla | Elbowsgluten-free | 8 min, al dente 7 | ||||
| Barilla | Elbowsprotein | 7 min, al dente 5 | ||||
| Barilla | Elbowswhole wheat | 7 min, al dente 6 | ||||
| La Molisana | Maccheroni | 37 | 13 min | |||
| La Molisana | Maccheroni Integraliwhole wheat | 37 | 11 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 macaroni
9 macaroni products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States, France, Algeria. Of those, 1 are made in Italy.
Brands: Kraft (1), Lustucru (1), Mueller's (1), Priano (1), Rema 1000 (1), Sainsbury S (1), Sim (1), Tak Makaron (1).
No macaroni? 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
Macaroni (outside of Italy), elbow macaroni, elbows, gomiti, macaroni elbows, maccheroncini, maccheroni.
Sources
- Large Elbows no. 33, De Cecco (catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Elbows no. 81, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Elbows (gluten-free), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Elbows, Garofalo (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Maccheroni, Mancini (cook time, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Elbows, Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Elbows (gluten-free), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Elbows (protein), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Elbows (whole wheat), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Maccheroni, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Maccheroni Integrali (whole wheat), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: De Cecco no. 81 (elbows): 8 min.
- Photograph: Macaroni2.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.
- Macaroni, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q10801829, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.