Mezze maniche
MED-dzeh MAH-nee-keh
Short wide ridged tube, half a rigatoni.
15.5 mm across, 1.2 mm wall
Name. Half sleeves. The short tube looks like a shirt sleeve cut off at the elbow.
What it is
Mezze maniche is a short wide ridged tube about three centimetres long, a rigatoni cut in half, and the name means half sleeves. It has become a favourite in Roman trattorias for carbonara and gricia because the short tube fills with sauce and is easy to eat.
Brands overlap it with mezzi rigatoni. They are the same thing under two names.
How to cook mezze maniche
11 to 13 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
11:00
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 mezze maniche. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 10 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
Short and wide, so each piece fills with sauce: carbonara, gricia, amatriciana, a sausage ragu. Also good in the oven and in a thick soup.
Pairs with: Carbonara · Gricia · Amatriciana · Sausage ragu · Baked (al forno)
Classic plates: Mezze maniche alla carbonara, Mezze maniche alla gricia, Mezze maniche al ragu.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
3 brands, 3 product pages. Cook times run from 11 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 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garofalo | Mezze Maniche Rigate | 32 | 14 min | Gragnano PGI · 454 g box | ||
| Mancini | Mezze Maniche | 11 min, al dente 9 | 20 mm | 19.2 mm | dried 22 h at 36 to 55 °C | |
| La Molisana | Mezze Maniche | 38 | 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.
Who makes mezze maniche
3 mezze maniche products are catalogued, most of them sold in Norway, Sweden, Stati Uniti D America. Of those, 1 are Gragnano PGI.
Brands: Garofalo (2), Zeta (1).
No mezze maniche? 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
mezzi rigatoni, maniche.
Sources
- Mezze Maniche Rigate, Garofalo (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Mezze Maniche, Mancini (cook time, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Mezze Maniche, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: typical dried, brand pages.
- Photograph: mezze maniche2.jpg, Popo le Chien, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- 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.
- Mezze maniche, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.