Pappardelle
pap-par-DEL-leh
Very wide flat ribbon, 2 to 3 cm, sometimes with a fluted edge.
25 mm wide, 1 mm thick
Name. From pappare, Tuscan for to gobble up.
What it is
Pappardelle is the widest ribbon, two to three centimetres across, cut from an egg sheet in Tuscany, sometimes with a crimped edge from a fluted wheel. It is the pasta of game ragu: hare, wild boar, duck.
The width is functional. A broad ribbon has room for chunks of meat and enough surface to carry a rich, reduced sauce without breaking.
How to cook pappardelle
3 to 9 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 pappardelle. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Fresh pasta has no dry core. It is done when it is tender, not when it resists.
- 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 broadest face of any ribbon, so it carries the heaviest sauces: wild boar, hare, duck, a mushroom sauce with body, a slow beef ragu. A light sauce leaves it bare.
Pairs with: Wild boar ragu · Meat ragu · Porcini · Ragu alla bolognese · Cream sauce
Classic plates: Pappardelle al cinghiale, Pappardelle sulla lepre, Pappardelle ai funghi, Pappardelle all'anatra.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
3 brands, 5 product pages. Cook times run from 5 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 | Width or Ø | Wall | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rummo | Pappardelle All'Uovoegg | 101 | 5 min | 13 mm | 0.8 mm | |
| Rummo | Pappardellenests | 119 | 7 min | 15 mm | 1.05 mm | |
| Garofalo | Pappardelle Nidonests | 1 | 8 min | 454 g box | ||
| La Molisana | Pappardelleartisan line | 105 | 12 min | |||
| La Molisana | Pappardelle N.205 All'Uovoextra di lusso | 205 | 5 min |
Nutrition
Per 100 g of fresh 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 | 288 kcal | 11.3 g | 54.7 g | g | 2.3 g | 26 mg | 3.4 mg |
| Cooked | 131 kcal | 5.2 g | 24.9 g | g | 1.1 g | 6 mg | 1.1 mg |
One portion. 100 g dry becomes about 220 g cooked, 288 kcal and 11 g of protein. Pasta takes on 2.2 times its weight in the pot.
Who makes pappardelle
53 pappardelle products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States, France, Italy. Of those, 1 are organic, 2 are made in Italy.
Brands: Jsp Enterprises Ltd (7), La Fabbrica della Pasta di Gragnano (2), Pappardelle S (2), Community Grains (2), On the Menu (1), Don Francesco (1), Mary Ker Kft (1), Garofalo (1), La Pasta di Camerino (1), Rustichella d'Abruzzo (1).
No pappardelle? 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
Papparelle, paparele, paparele (Veneto), pappardelle toscane, paspardelle (Marche).
Read more
Semolina versus egg dough: the two doughs of Italian pasta
The difference between durum semolina pasta and egg pasta: flour, water, eggs, where each is made, how each cooks, and which sauces each dough wants.
Fresh versus dried pasta: neither is better, they are different foods
The difference between fresh and dried pasta: dough, texture, cook time, storage, and which shapes and sauces belong to each.
Sources
- Pappardelle All'Uovo (egg), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Pappardelle (nests), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Pappardelle Nido (nests), Garofalo (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Pappardelle (artisan), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Pappardelle N.205 All'Uovo (extra di lusso), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: fresh egg 3 to 5 min; dried nests 7 to 9 min.
- Photograph: Pappardelle3.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 169727, Pasta, fresh-refrigerated, plain, as purchased; FDC 169728, Pasta, fresh-refrigerated, plain, cooked), public domain. The cooked yield is derived from the two energy figures.
- Pappardelle, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q20041, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.