Trenette
treh-NET-teh
Flat narrow strand, slightly wider than linguine.
3.5 mm wide, 1.8 mm thick
Name. From the Genoese trena, a thin string or braid.
What it is
Trenette is the Genoese flat strand, a little wider than linguine, and the pasta of trenette al pesto with green beans and potato. Bavette is the same family, sometimes with a thicker section.
Outside Liguria the three names blur into linguine on most shelves, but a Ligurian will tell you trenette is the one for pesto.
How to cook trenette
9 to 12 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
9:00
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 trenette. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 8 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
Pesto. The raw oily paste clings to the flat face, and the potato and beans cooked in the same water complete the dish. Oil and seafood sauces work the same way.
Pairs with: Pesto alla genovese · Vongole · Aglio e olio
Classic plates: Trenette al pesto con fagiolini e patate.
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.
No trenette? 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
bavette, trenette avvantaggiate.
Sources
- Cook time: typical dried, brand pages.
- Photograph: Trenette side.jpg, Popo le Chien, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- 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.
- Trenette, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q846310, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.