What to use instead of stringozzi
Rough and thick, so it holds an oily truffle paste or a garlic and tomato sauce without help. Heavy enough for a sausage ragu.
The closest swap: pici
The Tuscan hand-rolled equivalent.
Stringozzi is ribbons, 200 to 300 mm long, 4 to 8 minutes in the pot. Pici sits in the long strands family and cooks in 4 to 8 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 stringozzi, 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
Pici
Long strands · Tuscany
The Tuscan hand-rolled equivalent (chosen)
- 2
Tonnarelli
Long strands · Lazio
A square egg strand (chosen)
- 3
Spaghettoni
Long strands · Campania
The dried stand-in (chosen)
- 4
Scialatielli
Ribbons · Campania
Same family, also solid, also rough, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 5
Tagliolini
Ribbons · Piedmont
Same family, also solid, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 6
Tajarin
Ribbons · Piedmont
Same family, also solid, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 7
Bigoli
Long strands · Veneto
Also solid, also rough, shares 2 sauces, close in size
- 8
Mafaldine
Ribbons · Campania
Same family, also solid, shares 2 sauces
Match the sauce, not the look
Stringozzi is listed against 4 sauces. Pick the swap that holds the one you are cooking.
- 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 pomodoro: Tomato, olive oil, garlic or onion, basil. Smooth and light. Almost any shape works; the classic is spaghetti or penne.
- Best pasta for sausage ragu: Crumbled sausage, often with fennel, cooked in tomato or white wine. Orecchiette in Puglia, rigatoni everywhere else.
- Best pasta for porcini: Fresh or dried porcini with butter, garlic, parsley, sometimes cream. Egg ribbons, tajarin, pappardelle.
Side by side
The measured difference between stringozzi and each swap.