Stelline
stel-LEE-neh
Tiny five- or six-pointed stars with a hole in the centre.
Name. Little stars. Stellette and stelle are the larger grades.
What it is
Stelline are tiny stars, a few millimetres across, often with a pinhole in the middle. They are the classic first pasta for Italian babies, cooked in broth with a little parmesan and olive oil.
Stelle and stellette are the same shape a size or two up.
How to cook stelline
5 to 7 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
5:00
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 stelline. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Or cook it in the broth it will be served in, and do not drain it.
- Bite a piece at 4 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
Broth. Or a spoonful of tomato passata for a child. Nothing to hold sauce.
Pairs with: In brodo · Minestrone · Pomodoro
Classic plates: Stelline in brodo, Pastina con il parmigiano.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
3 brands, 5 product pages. Cook times run from 5 to 10 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rummo | Stelline | 22 | 6 min | 4.25 mm | 1.45 mm |
| Rummo | Stellinegluten-free | 22 | 7 min | 5.9 mm | 1.3 mm |
| Barilla | Starsprotein | 10 min, al dente 8 | |||
| La Molisana | Stelline | 59 | 6 min | ||
| La Molisana | Stelline Integraliwhole wheat | 59 | 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 stelline
10 stelline products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States, France, Italy. Of those, 1 are gluten-free, 1 are organic, 1 are made in Italy.
Brands: Garofalo (1), Conad (1), Massimo Zero (1), Divella (1), Rummo (1), Milaneza (1), Cora (1), Barilla (1), Simply Balanced (1), Target Stores (1).
No stelline? 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
stelle, stellette, stellini, star pasta.
Sources
- Stelline, Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Stelline (gluten-free), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Stars (protein), Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Stelline, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Stelline Integrali (whole wheat), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: typical dried, brand pages.
- 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.
- Stelline, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q114888032, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.