What to use instead of troccoli
A thick rough square strand for tomato with cacioricotta, a seafood sauce with mussels, or a meat ragu.
The closest swap: tonnarelli
The square egg strand of Rome.
Troccoli is long strands, 250 to 300 mm long, 6 to 10 minutes in the pot. Tonnarelli sits in the long strands family and cooks in 3 to 5 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 troccoli, 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
Tonnarelli
Long strands · Lazio
The square egg strand of Rome (chosen)
- 2
Spaghettoni
Long strands · Campania
A thick dried strand (chosen)
- 3
Pici
Long strands · Tuscany
The Tuscan thick strand (chosen)
- 4
Bigoli
Long strands · Veneto
Same family, also solid, also rough, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 5
Capellini
Long strands · Campania
Same family, also solid, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 6
Fedelini
Long strands · Liguria
Same family, also solid, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 7
Linguine
Long strands · Liguria
Same family, also solid, shares 1 sauce, close in size
- 8
Spaghetti
Long strands · Campania
Same family, also solid, shares 1 sauce, close in size
Match the sauce, not the look
Troccoli is listed against 3 sauces. Pick the swap that holds the one you are cooking.
- 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 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 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 troccoli and each swap.