What is your favourite pasta shape?

[currentlybrunette]

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to eat every shape of pasta in 2026.

What’s your favourite shape?

Mine is rigatoni.

Penne is my favourite, and while I suppose not technically pasta, gnocchi is also pretty elite.

Spaghetti is better than tagliatelle but both are a bit of a faff to eat

Rigatoni is just knock off penne, it cooks and tastes the same but I don't like the blunt ends. Penne is much prettier.

Farfalle are a bit rubbish

Filled pasta Eg tortellini is only ever really good if it's fresh and hand made on the day

Depends on the application I think! I'm a rigatoni girl too, or a nice compact penne. Or papardelle. My friend's kid is obsessed with "snake pasta" (fusilli lunghi bucati) but I can't get on board with long pasta with a hole in it, because it makes it impossible to suck the pasta in (Lady and the Tramp style).

I miss the really really long spaghetti that you used to see in the paper packaging, I haven't seen that for a long time.

Radiatori is a good sauce catcher! And mafaldine.

Good luck in your endeavours OP! 😁

Bucatini, farfalle, rigatoni, caesarecce

I also use tagliatelle as noodles quite a lot, works really well with stir fry type things.

Spiralli or rigatoni

Forgot abuot papardelle! Great with ragu

I like rigatoni too but I also really like conchigilie as the sauce gets inside.

The shells are really good in soup! The smaller ones though obviously

You can freeze fresh pasta. Cooks in 8 minutes

Quite possibly bucatini

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucatini

I like Alphabetti Speghetti as I can spell words. If am really hungry I may eat a 'HORSE' but if I'm not so hungry I might only eat a 'SALAD' and sometimes (but not often) I may eat 'LIKE A MOUSE' . Which oddly is more filling than 'HORSE'. 🤔

Penne.

I flirt with the others but Penne is my faithful.

The Crosta & Mollica Fiorelli one. It's shaped like a scrunched up flower and I can't go back to any other pasta shape or brand now. Plus It cooks really quickly. Dare I say I discovered it in Waitrose?!

Fusilli and the coloured Halloween shapes 😀

Orecchiette

perfect for a carbonara which is really guanciale/pancetta heavy. It acts like a little bowl

or good for chunky sauces too

Do you think it might have been this?

Sorry the image is so weirdly big. You have to click to read it

Stelline.

Whenever my DH is homesick for his Italian mum or just not feeling completely himself, he makes this soup with stelline that I think is just the pasta, a chicken bouillon cube, and a metric ton of grated parmigiano reggiano.

Tagliatelle

And penne

Same here. We call them James Bond bow ties 😂

Oo.

Twirls for everyday.
Penne sometimes.
Shells when I've forgotten how hard they are to shake off.
Spaghetti when I'm feeling Italian.
Macaroni when I want to make a big load of Mac cheese. Although any shape will do.
We had bows recently. Rice shaped one is rubbish.
Lasagne for making lasagna although I don't do that often enough.

I sometimes make tagliatelle in various widths. I also make gnocchi.

There are probably 3 types of pasta in the cupboard currently.

All of them!
can eat spaghetti for days, I dream of conchignelle and orichietti…
v partial to an orzo, especially the Ottolenghi prawn and tomato with chilli feta (which is great on salads in its own right) …

THIS!! Fiorelli is the absolute best pasta shape, also M&S does a slightly cheaper version. Perfect with anything because of the volume of floppy, frilly perfection, and no danger of hard bits as it’s just a free flowing shape.

I also love the skinny, skinny, teeny tiny spaghettini size 03 with a very lightweight sauce, even just some garlic/butter/parmesan.

Cavatappi which is the spiral-y tube style pasta is my fave for mac n cheese.

Fettuccine with Alfredo or other creamy sauce, the thickness of the pasta covered in that tasty creamy goodness is magnificent.

Penne is my go to and definitely my favourite. I like ones with a hole to hold the sauce but I find macaroni too small to really get a good forkful without having to shovel it.

I don’t really like farfalle as I feel the middle doesn’t cook as well as the ends and I find fusilli boring.

I’m very clumsy so while I like spaghetti and tagliatelle at home I refuse to eat them in public as I make a huge mess.

I do love a stuffed pasta too so give me all the ravioli and tortellini and I’ll even count cannelloni in this.

Fusilli bucati lunghi - (if that's how you spell it) - bit like old fashioned telephone wire
And the one like a snail - lumache? - as the sauce sits inside.
Rigatoni too.
The first two are harder to find sadly.

I agree with others about farfalle - how can it be cooked perfectly when the middle is thicker?

Lumache used to be a lot easier to come by when I was young I like that a lot. I also like cappaletti with a good mushroom sauce. Also a fan of bucatini, spaghetti, orzo, the standard always in the cupboard pasta here is tricolore fusilli.
I'll be honest there isn't really a pasta I won't eat. (Farfalle definitely at the bottom of the list though)