Occhi di lupo
OK-kee dee LOO-poh
Short wide ridged tube, cut straight.
13.5 mm across, 1.1 mm wall
Name. Wolf's eyes, for the round open ends.
What it is
Occhi di lupo are short wide ridged tubes, close to a mezze maniche, named for the wide round ends that look like eyes. It is a Campanian shape that carries the Sunday sauces.
On most shelves it overlaps with mezzi rigatoni and mezze maniche.
How to cook occhi di lupo
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 occhi di lupo. 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
As mezze maniche: sauces with pieces, a ragu, sausage, the oven.
Pairs with: Meat ragu · Sausage ragu · Baked (al forno) · Amatriciana
Classic plates: Occhi di lupo al ragu, Occhi di lupo al forno.
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 occhi di lupo? 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
occhi di lupo rigati.
Sources
- 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.
- Occhi di lupo, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q11261779, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.