What to use instead of pici
Thick, rough, and chewy, pici needs a sauce with force: garlic and tomato, breadcrumbs fried in oil, a game ragu. A delicate sauce disappears against the mass of the pasta.
The closest swap: bigoli
Another thick rough strand.
Pici is long strands, 200 to 350 mm long, 4 to 8 minutes in the pot. Bigoli sits in the long strands family and cooks in 8 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 pici, 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
Bigoli
Long strands · Veneto
Another thick rough strand (chosen)
- 2
Spaghettoni
Long strands · Campania
The dried stand-in (chosen)
- 3
Bucatini
Long strands · Lazio
Close in weight, with a bore (chosen)
- 4
Troccoli
Long strands · Puglia
Same family, also solid, also rough, shares 2 sauces, close in size
- 5
Tonnarelli
Long strands · Lazio
Same family, also solid, also rough, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 6
Fedelini
Long strands · Liguria
Same family, also solid, shares 2 sauces, close in size
- 7
Spaghetti
Long strands · Campania
Same family, also solid, shares 2 sauces, close in size
- 8
Spaghettini
Long strands · Campania
Same family, also solid, shares 2 sauces, close in size
Match the sauce, not the look
Pici is listed against 4 sauces. Pick the swap that holds the one you are cooking.
- Best pasta for wild boar ragu: Cinghiale braised with red wine, juniper, and tomato. Tuscan. Pappardelle or pici, the widest and the thickest.
- 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 aglio e olio: Garlic, olive oil, chili, parsley. The thinnest sauce there is. It needs a strand that it can coat, with nothing to hide in.
- 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.
Side by side
The measured difference between pici and each swap.