Ziti
ZEE-tee
Smooth medium tube, cut straight; sold long or cut.
10 mm across, 1.1 mm wall
Name. From zita, Neapolitan for bride. The long tubes were broken by hand for wedding feasts.
What it is
Ziti is a smooth medium tube from Naples, narrower than rigatoni and without ridges. It was originally sold as long tubes, ziti lunghi, that the cook snapped into pieces at the table; the cut version, ziti tagliati, is what most boxes hold today. Zitoni are the wider grade.
In Campania it carries the Sunday ragu and the Genovese onion sauce. In the United States it became baked ziti, layered with tomato, ricotta, and mozzarella.
How to cook ziti
11 to 14 minutes in boiling salted water. Al dente at 9 minutes, fully cooked at 14.
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 ziti. 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
A smooth tube holds sauce inside the bore rather than on the surface, so it wants a sauce with enough body to fill it: a slow ragu, the Neapolitan onion Genovese, a baked tomato and cheese.
Pairs with: Ragu napoletano · Baked (al forno) · Pomodoro · Marinara · Meat ragu
Classic plates: Ziti alla genovese, Baked ziti, Ziti al ragu napoletano.
By brand: numbers, cook times, spec sheets
4 brands, 7 product pages. Cook times run from 8 to 12 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 | Wall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| De Cecco | Zita Cut no. 118 | 118 | 11 min, al dente 9 | |||
| Rummo | Zita Tagliati | 36 | 10 min | 40 mm | 8.4 mm | 1.3 mm |
| Rummo | Ziteartisan line | 10 | 9 min | 260 mm | 7.7 mm | 1.3 mm |
| Barilla | Ziti | 12 min, al dente 11 | ||||
| La Molisana | Ziti Tagliati | 36 | 11 min | |||
| La Molisana | Ziti Pastaartisan line | 8 | 8 min | |||
| La Molisana | Zitoni Napoletaniartisan line | 10 | 9 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 ziti
74 ziti products are catalogued, most of them sold in United States, France, Italy. Of those, 2 are gluten-free, 3 are organic, 2 are Gragnano PGI, 3 are bronze die, 8 are made in Italy.
Brands: New World Pasta (6), Garofalo (4), Voiello (3), Ronzoni (2), Prince (2), San Giorgio (2), Granoro (2), Shoprite (2), Mueller's (2), Divella (2).
No ziti? 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
Boccolotti, candele, zita, zita cut, ziti candelati, ziti lunghi, ziti tagliati, zitoni, zituane.
Sources
- Zita Cut no. 118, De Cecco (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Zita Tagliati, Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Zite (artisan), Rummo (cook time, catalogue number, spec sheet dimensions, from the brand's own product page)
- Ziti, Barilla (cook time, from the brand's own product page)
- Ziti Tagliati, La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Ziti Pasta (artisan), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Zitoni Napoletani (artisan), La Molisana (cook time, catalogue number, from the brand's own product page)
- Cook time: De Cecco no. 118 (zita cut): 13 min.
- Photograph: Ziti.jpg, Popo le Chien, CC0.
- 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.
- Ziti, Wikipedia (names, origin), CC BY-SA 4.0
- Q3379588, Wikidata
- Dimensions: brand spec sheets and measured boxes. Blank fields are unmeasured, never guessed.