PASTA IS THE ruler of all carbs. It boldly stands beside all sauces, assumes all shapes, and satisfies every desire.
Here is DailyEdge.ie‘s ranking of 11 popular pasta shapes, judging by sauce hold-ability, messiness, general beauty, and degree of difficulty in eating the pasta.
11. Rotelle
The wheel pasta is for children. End of story.
10. Pappardelle
This thick ribbon pasta should be good in theory, but there’s something slightly unwieldy about it - should we try to cut it up? Let it dangle into our mouths like a saucy snake? Too many questions. Next.
9. Farfalle
The fancy shape is fun, sure, but we feel in this case, it’s a bit style over substance. Is this really the best you can offer your pasta sauce? No.
8. Conchiglie
These SHOULD be ideal – what could be better than a pasta that serves as a little tiny bowl for sauce? But in practice, that’s not the case.
They’re small, difficult to spear on a fork, and just love rolling EVERYWHERE. Wear a bib, or don’t try it.
7. Macaroni
Often overlooked here in Ireland, macaroni is best known for its role in the famous macaroni’n'cheese combo.
And while it serves cheese extremely well, it performs admirably in pasta bakes and salads.
6. Linguine
As spaghetti’s flatter, thicker cousin, linguine often doesn’t get a look in. But it’s a solid choice for seafood pasta dishes and surprisingly easy to handle, fork-wise.
5. Spaghetti
Spaghetti is an excellent pasta, and a great sauce and meat delivery system.
However, the debate on how to efficiently eat it rages on (DailyEdge.ie Towers contains both fork-twirlers and spaghetti cutters) and splatter factor is very high.
We can definitely live with that, though.
4. Tagliatelle
But the best of all the thin pastas is tagliatelle - it’s the perfect size to twirl around a fork and the ONLY acceptable accompaniment to carbonara sauce. Mmm.
3. Rigatoni
Otherwise known as Fat Penne. Look how wonderfully they fill up with sauce:
Like spaghetti, however, the splat factor is high. Drop one of these babies and it’s bye bye, white shirt, but that’s the price you pay for pasta glory.
2. Fusilli
Ah, this curly wonder.
The danger of a mess is low, it’s easy to shove into your gob, and those coils catch sauce and melted cheese in a most pleasing manner. What’s not to love?
1. Penne
There’s something about penne. It’s simple, but it does its job so well, and catches sauce so beautifully, that it’s easy to name it the King of All Pasta. Keep on being you, penne.
