Vesuvio
veh-ZOO-vee-oh
Tight spiral cone, like the volcano.
Name. Named for Vesuvius, the volcano above Naples.
What it is
Vesuvio is a Gragnano shape: a spiral wound tight into a cone, named for the volcano that looks down on the town. It is thick-walled and takes a long cook.
It is a shape of the artisan Neapolitan pasta makers rather than the supermarket, often bronze-cut.
How to cook vesuvio
11 to 14 minutes in boiling salted water. Take the shorter time for al dente, the longer time for fully cooked.
11:00
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 vesuvio. Stir for the first minute so nothing sticks. Start the timer when the water returns to the boil.
- Bite a piece at 10 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
A dense spiral with pockets between the turns, so it carries a Neapolitan ragu, a sausage sauce, or a thick tomato with ricotta.
Pairs with: Ragu napoletano · Sausage ragu · Pomodoro · Ricotta
Classic plates: Vesuvio al ragu, Vesuvio con salsiccia e ricotta.
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 vesuvio? 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
vesuvi, vesuvio di Gragnano.
Read more
Sources
- Cook time: typical dried, Gragnano brands.
- Photograph: Vesuvio pasta.jpg, Popo le Chien, CC0.
- 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.
- Vesuvio (pasta), Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.