Rigatoni
ree-gah-TOH-nee
Wide ridged tube cut straight across.
15.5 mm across, 1.2 mm wall
Name. From rigato, lined or grooved, with the augmentative -oni. The big grooved ones.
What it is
Rigatoni is a wide ridged tube about five centimetres long and a centimetre and a half across, cut square at both ends. The ridges are a product of the extrusion die and spread with industrial pasta in the nineteenth century; hand-made pasta has none.
Rome claims it hardest. Rigatoni con la pajata, with the intestines of a milk-fed calf, is Roman offal cooking at its most serious, and rigatoni alla carbonara and alla gricia are standard trattoria plates. Sicily gives it the Norma. Everywhere it goes into the oven.
How to cook rigatoni
12 to 14 minutes in boiling salted water. Al dente at 12 minutes, fully cooked at 14.
12:00
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 rigatoni. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 11 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 widest bore of the everyday tubes, so pieces of sausage, eggplant, or braised meat ride inside it. The ridges hold sauce and grated cheese on the outside. The square-cut ends scoop. It wants amatriciana, a slow ragu, sausage, and baked dishes. Thin oil sauces drain straight through.
Pairs with: Amatriciana · Meat ragu · Sausage ragu · Norma · Carbonara · Gricia · Baked (al forno) · Vodka sauce
Classic plates: Rigatoni con la pajata, Rigatoni alla Norma, Rigatoni alla zozzona, Rigatoni al forno, Rigatoni alla carbonara.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
5 brands, 8 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 | Wall | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| De Cecco | Rigatoni no. 24 | 24 | 14 min, al dente 12 | ||||
| De Cecco | Rigatoni Napoletani no. 124 | 124 | 14 min, al dente 12 | ||||
| Rummo | Rigatoni | 50 | 14 min | 40 mm | 14.5 mm | 1.4 to 1.75 mm | |
| Mancini | Rigatoni | 11 min, al dente 9 | 45 mm | 19.2 mm | dried 22 h at 36 to 55 °C | ||
| Barilla | Rigatoni | 13 min, al dente 12 | |||||
| Barilla | Rigatoniprotein | 11 min, al dente 9 | |||||
| La Molisana | Rigatoni | 31 | 13 min | ||||
| La Molisana | Rigatoni N.31extra di lusso | 31 | 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 rigatoni
384 rigatoni products are catalogued, most of them sold in Italy, France, United States. Of those, 28 are gluten-free, 42 are organic, 27 are Gragnano PGI, 14 are bronze die, 46 are made in Italy.
Brands: Barilla (10), De Cecco (9), Rummo (9), La Molisana (8), Delverde (6), Garofalo (6), Cav Giuseppe Cocco (5), Colavita (5), Coop (5), Conad (4).
No rigatoni? Use these
Ranked by how they behave with sauce, not how they look. Full substitute list.
Side by side
Easy to confuse with
Tortiglioni
Tubes · Campania
medium tube with ridges that spiral around it
Mezze maniche
Tubes · All of Italy
short wide ridged tube, half a rigatoni
Penne
Tubes · Liguria
medium tube cut on the diagonal, ridged (rigate) or smooth (lisce)
Paccheri
Tubes · Campania
very wide smooth tube, collapses flat when cooked
Sedani
Tubes · All of Italy
slightly curved narrow ridged tube
Pennoni
Tubes · All of Italy
large penne, ridged, 1.5 cm across
Other names
Bombardoni, cannaroni rigati, cannerozzi rigati, mezzi rigatoni, rigatoni napoletani, rigatoni no. 24, rigatoni romani, trivelli, tuffolini rigati.
Sources
- Rigatoni no. 24, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Rigatoni Napoletani no. 124, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Rigatoni, Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Rigatoni, Mancini (cook time, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Rigatoni, Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Rigatoni (protein), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Rigatoni, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Rigatoni N.31 (extra di lusso), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: De Cecco no. 24: 14 min, al dente 12.
- Photograph: Rigatoni closeup.png, 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.
- Rigatoni, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q20024, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.