Rotini
roh-TEE-nee
Tight short spiral, the American fusilli.
Name. Little wheels, from rota. The name is American; in Italy the shape is fusilli or eliche.
What it is
Rotini is what American brands call a short twisted spiral, and in practice it is fusilli with a tighter twist. The name barely exists in Italy, where the shape is fusilli or eliche.
It is the pasta-salad and casserole shape of the American kitchen, and often sold as a tricolour mix with spinach and tomato dough.
How to cook rotini
8 to 10 minutes in boiling salted water. Al dente at 7 minutes, fully cooked at 10.
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 rotini. 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
As fusilli: sauces and dressings with pieces that catch in the twist. Pasta salad, pesto, a chunky tomato, a cheese sauce.
Pairs with: Pasta salad · Pesto alla genovese · Pomodoro · Mac and cheese · Vegetable ragu
Classic plates: Rotini pasta salad, Rotini with meat sauce, Baked rotini.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
1 brand, 7 product pages. Cook times run from 8 to 10 minutes across brands, so read the box, not a rule.
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 rotini
196 rotini products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States, Canada, Bolivia. Of those, 16 are gluten-free, 1 are whole grain, 21 are organic, 1 are made in Italy.
Brands: Barilla (15), New World Pasta (11), Ronzoni (10), Reggano (5), Nwpc (5), Simply Nature (5), Creamette (4), Meijer (4), Giant Eagle (3), Great Value (3).
No rotini? 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
fusilli, spirals, eliche.
Sources
- Rotini, Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Rotini, Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Rotini (gluten-free), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Rotini (legume), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Rotini (legume), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Rotini (protein), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Rotini (whole wheat), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: typical dried, brand pages.
- Photograph: Rotini.jpg, Fazal Majid, Public domain.
- 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.
- Rotini, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q5361233, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.