I make a good pasta sauce but would like some tips on choosing pasta?

Question

are there some tried and true rules of thumb for matching types of pasta sauce with shapes and type of pasta.

Answer 1

"Flat Long Shapes (fettuccine, rigate, linguine): Pair with robust sauces (dairy-, oil- or tomato-based plus sauces combined with meat, veggies, seafood or cheese)

Round Long Shapes (angel hair, different types of spaghetti): Pair with simple tomato sauces (with or without meat or veggies), fish-based sauces, olive oil with garlic & fresh herbs

Oven Shapes (lasagna, manicotti, jumbo shells): Pair with robust sauces and fillings; chunky and moist sauces such as béchamel and Bolognese work best

Soup Shapes (pastina, orzo, ditalini): Pair pastina with light vegetable, meat or fish-based broth soups; pair the others with heartier soups

Specialty Shapes (gemelli, large shells): Pair with vegetable and hearty dairy-based (cheese or béchamel) sauces

Tube Shapes (penne, mostaccioli, rigatoni): Pair with full-flavored, chunky meat and veggie sauces

Versatile Shapes (farfalle, elbows, rotini): Pair with light sauces with vegetables or fish, simple oil-based and dairy-based sauces; and use in pasta salads"

http://www.kpic.com/features/recipes/4298502.html

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Answer 2

There are a lot of them.

The Europeans were afraid of tomatoes for years, so they make a small amount of paste with flour and do something very different.

Our tomato sauces are usually metallic, sharp or tasting of some preservative and need work.

One year, I grew tomatoes enough for eight batches of sauce and got it perfect, or at least for for me.

The rules I found were four:
1. Thick pasta tends to taste starchier in taste, so it requires a richer, heavier, more full-bodied sauce or the addition of cheese as in my favorite, manicotti, or ground meat as in several dishes to drown the negatives; other types are ravioli, potato pasta (gnocchi), etc.
2. Very small, thin pasta such as linguini and vermicelli
and angel hair don't need a lot of covering up by comparison; so linguini is wonderful with frozen peas,
and these can be used as a bed for other ingredients very successfully since they don't compete with flavors as much--shrimp, smaller solid meatballs, salami and the like accompany them well, as do clam sauce, Euro sauce and win sauces.
3. Medium pasta such as small penne, small spiral types and smaller shells match well with sweeter ingredients, since they don't need covering and benefit from the sweet over bitter major flavor duality. You can use a butter sauce (Alfredo), a white sauce, a thinner red sauce and eve just god olive oil with basils and chives on these; I also saute onions and sweet peppers for use with these, and add black olives.
4. Even broken into thirds for boiling, except for thin spaghetti, every sort of fusilli and spaghetti becomes something a little different than any of the others owing to simple density and a predominance of light bitterness. For these, I recommend a different approach. With these use sweeter tomatoes coarsely cut up, pre-sauteed onion and Italian bread crumbs, a very good quality tomato sauce with garlic added, pres-sauteed yellow peppers, manicotti and sauce, etc. to bring out the sweeter side while giving the pasta an equal role.
A word above leafy vegetables, grated and shredded cheeses and pestos. All can be good with the right pasta;
but not all pasta is right to be good with all things. I add beans to thinner pasta not thick. I use pesto sauce or avocado for instance on the number threes, the medium-small types unless it's to dominate thin pasta strands.
And grated cheese is strictly personal--I almost never use anything but great Parmigiana by itself; it's way too oily in taste. Peccorino Romano can be kept on hand in the fridge for months instead; and I have taken to using medium cheddar or provolone for grating. Others I use include hard-to-get Italian types hard to come by, and two standbys--Greek feta crumbled and Mizithra, which shreds beautifully and has a slightly stronger flavor, on the dishes that needs its help.
As to making a salad with pasta, the macaroni and smaller types work far better; and almost any sort of meat and sauce can be added successfully.

Answer 3

Thinner sauces should b paired with pasta shapes that hold pasta i.e. rigatoni, shells... Thicker sauces can handle the thinner noodles...

Answer 4

There's no rule of thumb that I know of, but this is what I do.

For meatballs, long spaghetti
Meatsauce: shells, ziti (anything that could hold the small pieces of meat)
For dishes that don't have tomato sauce I usually use fettuccine or angel hair.

Answer 5

the best pasta is !!! the one you make yourself.
buy a pasta rolling machine.
plenty of good recipes out there.
so go and experiment.!!!

Answer 6

Have you tried using Angel hair pasta.. it is real thin and small strings of pasta. and really good.

Answer 7

the type of pasta isnt something i worrie about too much...its all very similar..in my opinion...tho i do have my preferences...
I just wanted to Suggest putting a little bit of finel chopped
Green Bell Pepper in it...it gives it a nice tast..in my oppinion..
good luck...and enjoy

Answer 8

Use lots of water when boiling it, the more water, the better, won't stick.
White clam sauce is always "Linguine".

I always use No. #8 spaghetti, (restaurant grade, thicker), just remember #8 (ate=eat) when choosing macaroni.

Answer 9

It sounds like Treadstones got it right on their post. I would just like to add that for presentation, cavatappi is lovely and fun to eat!

Answer 10

Lobster filled raviolies are awesome!! Same with the artichoke filled ones. YUMMY! =)