Spaghettini
spah-get-TEE-nee
Round solid strand, about 1.5 mm across.
1.5 mm across
Name. Spaghetti with the diminutive -ini. Thin little strings.
What it is
Spaghettini sits between spaghetti and capellini. It is thin enough to cook in six to nine minutes and thick enough to keep some bite. Brands sell it as thin spaghetti or by number: De Cecco no. 11, Barilla no. 3.
It is the strand of choice for light seafood and oil sauces in the south, where a thick spaghetti would feel heavy against clams or a raw tomato.
How to cook spaghettini
6 to 9 minutes in boiling salted water. Al dente at 7 minutes, fully cooked at 9.
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 spaghettini. 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
Less mass per strand means less sauce per mouthful, so the sauce should be light and fast. Oil, garlic, chili, lemon, clams, cherry tomatoes. Cream and ragu drown it.
Pairs with: Aglio e olio · Vongole · Lemon and butter · Pomodoro · Bottarga
Classic plates: Spaghettini alle vongole, Spaghettini aglio, olio e peperoncino, Spaghettini al limone.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
6 brands, 9 product pages. Cook times run from 5 to 9 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| De Cecco | Thin Spaghetti no. 11 | 11 | 9 min, al dente 7 | |||
| Rummo | Spaghettini | 2 | 7 min | 260 mm | 1.75 mm | |
| Garofalo | Spaghettini | 4 | 6 min | Gragnano PGI · 454 g box | ||
| Mancini | Spaghettini | 9 min, al dente 7 | 260 mm | 1.8 mm | dried 24 h at 36 to 46 °C | |
| Barilla | Thin Spaghetti | 7 min, al dente 6 | ||||
| Barilla | Thin Spaghettiprotein | 7 min, al dente 5 | ||||
| Barilla | Thin Spaghettiwhole wheat | 7 min, al dente 6 | ||||
| La Molisana | Spaghettini | 16 | 9 min | |||
| La Molisana | Spaghettini 16A | 5 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 spaghettini
31 spaghettini products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States, Canada, Germany. Of those, 3 are organic, 1 are bronze die, 3 are made in Italy.
Brands: Catelli (3), Great Value (2), Lantmannen Cerealia As (2), Migros (1), Compliments (1), Italpasta (1), Ahold (1), Lancia (1), Barilla (1), Catelli Ancient Grains (1).
No spaghettini? 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
Thin spaghetti, spaghetti n. 3, thin spaghetti.
Sources
- Thin Spaghetti no. 11, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Spaghettini, Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Spaghettini, Garofalo (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Spaghettini, Mancini (cook time, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Thin Spaghetti, Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Thin Spaghetti (protein), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Thin Spaghetti (whole wheat), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Spaghettini, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Spaghettini 16A, La Molisana (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: De Cecco no. 11 (thin spaghetti): 9 min.
- 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.
- Spaghettini, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.