What to use instead of busiate
A long loose coil with a bore, so it holds a thick pesto in every turn: trapanese, pistachio, or a Norma-style eggplant sauce. It also takes seafood.
The closest swap: fusilli lunghi
A long dried coil.
Busiate is hand-formed, 60 to 100 mm long, 8 to 12 minutes in the pot. Fusilli lunghi sits in the long strands family and cooks in 10 to 13 minutes. Match the cook time first. A swap that is right in shape and wrong in time still ends up wrong on the plate.
Every swap for busiate, ranked
A substitute must behave the same way with the sauce you are making. The ones marked as chosen are hand-picked. The rest score on family, cavity, surface, size, and shared sauces.
- 1
Fusilli lunghi
Long strands · Campania
A long dried coil (chosen)
- 2
Casarecce
Short shapes · Sicily
The Sicilian rolled strip (chosen)
- 3
Fusilli
Short shapes · Campania
A short spiral (chosen)
- 4
Fileja
Hand-formed · Calabria
Same family, also hollow, also rough, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 5
Maccheroni al ferretto
Hand-formed · Calabria
Same family, also hollow, also rough, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 6
Trofie
Hand-formed · Liguria
Same family, also rough, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 7
Capunti
Hand-formed · Puglia
Same family, also rough, shares 1 sauce
- 8
Cavatelli
Hand-formed · Puglia
Same family, also rough, shares 1 sauce
Match the sauce, not the look
Busiate is listed against 4 sauces. Pick the swap that holds the one you are cooking.
- Best pasta for pesto alla trapanese: Almonds, raw tomato, basil, garlic, pecorino. Sicilian pesto. Busiate is its shape; the coil holds the paste.
- Best pasta for norma: Fried eggplant, tomato, ricotta salata, basil. Sicilian. It needs a wide tube or a short shape to carry the eggplant.
- Best pasta for pomodoro: Tomato, olive oil, garlic or onion, basil. Smooth and light. Almost any shape works; the classic is spaghetti or penne.
- Best pasta for frutti di mare: Mixed shellfish in a light tomato or white wine base. Linguine, spaghetti, or calamarata with its squid-ring shape.
Side by side
The measured difference between busiate and each swap.