What to use instead of garganelli
Egg dough, ridges, and a bore, so they absorb and hold a rich sauce: ragu, cream with peas and ham, a butter and prosciutto dressing. The classic cream sauce of Romagna was made for them.
The closest swap: penne
The dried extruded quill.
Garganelli is tubes, 40 to 50 mm long, 3 to 5 minutes in the pot. Penne sits in the tubes family and cooks in 10 to 12 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 garganelli, 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
Penne
Tubes · Liguria
The dried extruded quill (chosen)
- 2
Tortiglioni
Tubes · Campania
A ridged dried tube (chosen)
- 3
Lumache
Tubes · All of Italy
Same family, also hollow, also ridged, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 4
Occhi di lupo
Tubes · Campania
Same family, also hollow, also ridged, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 5
Pipe rigate
Tubes · All of Italy
Same family, also hollow, also ridged, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 6
Pennoni
Tubes · All of Italy
Same family, also hollow, also ridged, shares 2 sauces
- 7
Sedani
Tubes · All of Italy
Same family, also hollow, also ridged, shares 2 sauces
- 8
Candele
Tubes · Campania
Same family, also hollow, shares 1 sauce, close in size
Match the sauce, not the look
Garganelli is listed against 4 sauces. Pick the swap that holds the one you are cooking.
- Best pasta for cream sauce: Panna with cheese, mushrooms, ham, or peas. Heavy and clinging. Ridges and cups keep it on the pasta.
- Best pasta for ragu alla bolognese: A slow-cooked minced beef and pork sauce with soffritto, wine, milk, and a little tomato. Tagliatelle, never spaghetti, in Bologna.
- Best pasta for meat ragu: Any slow meat sauce with solids in it. It wants a shape with a cavity: a wide tube, a cup, or a broad ribbon.
- Best pasta for butter and sage: Brown butter with crisped sage leaves. The filled-pasta sauce. It stays out of the way of the filling.
Side by side
The measured difference between garganelli and each swap.