29 Types Of Short Pasta, Explained

Ah, pasta. Is there any food so universally loved as this infinitely versatile staple? It's a pantry must-have that can accommodate any palate, whether you need to whip up a simple mac and cheese dish for the kiddos or you're after a more mature carbonara. When it comes to the popular dinner dish, the pasta-bilities (sorry) are endless, especially when you take into account the sheer volume of noodle varieties on the market.

Sure, we all know the common types — macaroni, fusilli, penne, spaghetti, fettuccini, etc. — but the world of pasta is vast, and there's a pretty good chance that you've never heard of many classic noodle shapes. If you'd like to branch out from the many types of long pasta available to consumers, it's time to explore short pasta. These are the noodles that you bake into a quick, cheesy dish, stuff with your favorite meat and cheese sauces, and use to add some oomph to your favorite soups. Whether you have pasta every night or treat it as an occasional indulgence, join us to expand your noodle knowledge as we give you the low-down on 29 types of short pasta. 

We'll start with one of the most familiar types of short pasta — the ever-popular penne rigate! Commonly shortened to "penne," this pasta comes in a tube shape with angled edges and a ridged surface, perfect for holding on to your favorite sauce. Its name comes from the Italian "penna" and refers to the quill-shaped taper of the noodle's end. You may already have some penne rigate in your pantry — give it some love by using it in one of our favorite penne pasta recipes that you'll want on repeat. 

Fusilli is a spiral-shaped, grooved pasta whose name comes from the word "fuso," meaning "spindle."  It's traditionally made from semolina flour and has a variety of uses. Fusilli is another great pasta to pair with any sauce, whether it be meaty or a thin oil-based concoction, as its grooves will trap whatever sauce you have a hankering for. This is also a great pasta to use in pasta salad — it can hold its own when paired with other hearty ingredients and its grip will tie the whole pasta salad together.

If you need a pasta to pair with your thickest, heartiest sauce, look no further than paccheri rigati. The wide, short, ridged tubes can grab onto sauces filled with large chunks of sausage or beef. You don't have to stay away from these noodles if you're meat-averse, though; they're also great when paired with chunky vegetable-based sauces or even a thick and creamy cheese sauce. The noodle's name is derived from the Neapolitan slang word "paccharia," which means "slap" and refers to the sound the noodles make when they're poured into boiling water.

Italian speakers will find it easy to see where this pasta's name comes from. Lumaconi refers to "lumaca," which means "snail" in Italian. Indeed, these pasta shells are decidedly snail-shaped — one end of the tube is a large opening while the other end is slightly pinched, allowing each noodle to trap a decent amount of sauce inside. You can find lumaconi in both small and large sizes. Small lumaconi is great for thinner sauces and soups dishes. Large lumaconi, on the other hand, begs to be stuffed with your favorite hearty ingredients and baked in the oven. 

Also commonly known as "bow tie" pasta, the name "farfalle" actually comes from the Italian word for butterflies. It may look slightly complex, but you could make this shape at home — cut pasta dough into squares, ridge the edges with pinking shears, and pinch each noodle together in the middle to get that bowtie shape. Though you shouldn't use farfalle when making pasta salad, it's perfect for pairing with light and thin sauces. 

Trecce (a word meaning "braid" in Italian) is a pasta with a distinctive spiral shape — each noodle resembles a braid of hair. The noodles are relatively tightly coiled, and though you're welcome to serve them however you'd like, you may find that they don't hold onto chunky sauces very well. Instead, pair your next batch of trecce noodles with a lighter sauce. It could be olive oil, tomato, or cream based, and make sure it incorporates plenty of herbs, which the noodles will adhere to well.

The smallest of the shell-shaped pastas (with conchiglie and conchiglioni referring to its larger brethren), conchigliette is an adorable noodle that you'll commonly find sprinkled into soups and other dishes begging for a hint of pasta. The small shells will scoop up liquid when lifted from a broth, so they marry well with soup, but they'd also make a great accompaniment for a thin cheese sauce. It's a good pasta to have on hand for those occasions when you need to add some oomph to a larger dish.

Ditalini pasta is also tiny in stature but can pack a punch in many a dish. The word, meaning "little thimbles," is indeed an accurate moniker for these small, tubular noodles, which can be smooth or ridged. If you've ever come across ditalini in the wild, it's likely been in something like a minestrone soup. It's also a good pasta to use in pasta salad if you're looking for a small noodle. You probably won't have much luck making this one by hand due to its excessively small size, but it's a good choice to grab should you run across it on your next grocery run.

Cavatappi, meaning "corkscrew" in Italian, is aptly named for its spiraled, tubular shape. The pasta shape was born in southern Italy and it's traditionally made sans eggs. It's a very versatile pasta — though its corkscrew shape makes it decently grippy for thick sauces, the thin tube running through it will hold well to thin, creamy sauces as well. Your imagination is the limit when it comes to this fun pasta shape, which we encourage you to experiment with. It's also a shape you'll want to keep in your cabinet for nights when you want pasta but don't have a particular dish in mind. 

Orecchiette, meaning "small ears" in Italian, is a fun (and very appropriate) name for our next short pasta type. The slightly shell-shaped pasta isn't quite as concave as a conchigliette, but its gentle dip makes it an ideal choice for scooping up slightly chunkier sauces. The outside is often ridged while the inside is smooth, making it one of the more interestingly textured selections on our list. You may already have guessed that the simple noodles are pretty easy to make at home — whip up a batch and try them in our one-pan orecchiette with sausage dish.

You may be less familiar with fiorelli than some of the other options on our list. This less-common pasta shape is tubular with ruffled edges, giving it a slightly playful appearance while still being great in any number of pasta dishes. It will hold on well to meaty sauces (though it probably won't pick up super chunky sauces), and will also do well when scooping up cream sauces. If you can get your hands on some, use this noodle the next time you want to impress a crowd with a pasta shape they may not have tried before.

Here's a short pasta type you're sure to be familiar with: macaroni. Is there anything that harkens back to childhood like boxed macaroni and cheese? Though that may be how you're used to consuming the noodle, it might be time to expand your macaroni horizons. Try adding the noodles to your favorite vegetable soup or mix them into a minestrone. If you're craving the classic, turn the noodle into your favorite bold macaroni and cheese. 

Similar to lumaconi, chiocciole is also a snail-shaped pasta, though often smaller than the aforementioned shells. You'll find the same pinched opening on one end and larger opening on the other, which creates the perfect sauce holder. This elbow-shaped pasta is typically ridged on the outside and goes well with thicker sauces, which will get trapped in the noodles' opening and held there via the pinched end. 

Any Gemini may find it easy to guess how this noodle got its name. Gemelli, which means "twins" in Italian, works as a great descriptor for the tightly-wound pasta shape that looks like two noodles twisting around each other. This is just a clever visual trick, though; each piece is just a single noodle. Use this pasta when you want to depart from your typical fusilli or penne noodles. You'll find it holds sauce equally as well as those more common types, as its tight shape will hold up well when cooked al dente. 

Manicotti has been around for a while, likely in part because of how easy the large cylinders are to form by hand. Unlike other pastas on this list, manicotti has a very particular function. The wide noodles are often stuffed with thick, meat-based sauces before being baked. If a manicotti bake sounds daunting, don't worry — it's actually pretty easy to stuff manicotti, and the payoff is well worth the slight learning curve. 

Fans of small pasta shapes are likely familiar with orzo, which is named for the Italian word for "barley." The pasta is shaped like the small grain, though it's not made from barley. Orzo is a great shape to use when you want a dish heavily concentrated with a small pasta. You can make orzo the highlight of the dish and pair it with a simple oil and herb sauce or add it as a hearty element to a vegetable soup.

Though this pasta looks slightly similar to fusilli, radiatore is actually named because it's shaped like — you guessed it — radiators. The ruffled, ridged noodle is slightly tighter than fusilli and also a great option when you want a noodle that can grip onto a meat sauce. Its curved shape closes slightly after being cooked and can trap sauce inside. The shape hasn't been around for too long, possibly originating in the 1960s, and isn't always the easiest to find. However, if you happen to see a bag at the store, it's a fun noodle to play around with.

Chances are you've at least heard of ravioli, if not enjoyed it more than once. The popular pasta type gets its name from the Italian "riavvolgere," which means " to wrap." As ravioli wraps the noodle around its filling, it's a fitting name for the hearty dish. Ravioli (like many other dishes) has been adapted to fit a variety of cultural cuisines, and the only ravioli that really finds its roots in Italy is cheese ravioli. In most cases, there's a good chance that other popular varieties (like lobster ravioli) originated outside of Italy.

You're also probably quite familiar with rigatoni, the name for which comes from the Italian word for "ridged," "rigato." This ridged pasta is typically found in the form of squat, wide noodles with large openings that can hold your favorite meat- or vegetable-based sauces. Rigatoni is also a great choice if you want a baked pasta for dinner. Stay away from using it with thinner sauces, though, as they aren't hearty enough to marry well with the super-hollow rigatoni noodles.

A particularly fun pasta shape, rotelle (pasta shaped like wagon wheels, spokes and all) is a great choice if you're looking for a whimsical food to feed picky kids. You can use rotelle in a variety of ways depending on the palate of your intended audience. Its multiple openings will hold onto meat or cheese-based sauces well, but it's also a good choice if you want a noodle to liven up thinner soups and stews. Cook it al dente to ensure it holds its shape, especially if you want it to capture sauces. 

It's easy to confuse fusilli and rotini — after all, the two spiral-shaped pastas are very similar in appearance and function. Where fusilli's spiral is relatively wide, rotini boasts a tighter spiral. It's important to differentiate between the two depending on what you want to pair your pasta with: A thick and hearty sauce with large chunks of meat or vegetables may be better paired with fusilli, while rotini will more easily hold thinner cream- or oil-based sauces. 

Ziti is another pasta with a similarly-shaped relative — a quick glance can make ziti and penne easily confusable, but it's the ends of each noodle that distinguishes one from the other. Where penne has an angled end, ziti does not. Ziti is also regularly found without ridges. You can use ziti in a variety of ways but will most typically find it in pasta bakes. Its tubular shape allows it to capture sauces and it's thick enough not to disintegrate when baked into a pasta dish. 

Ah, tortellini. The stuffed, ring-shaped pasta is relatively small in size (unless you opt for its larger version, tortelloni) but packs a punch in any meal. The shining star of tortellini is whatever you decide to fill it with, be it meat, cheese, or vegetables. Let its filling shine by keeping the rest of your tortellini dish relatively simple. Serve it in a soup or with a similarly thin tomato- or cream-based sauce, depending on which will best complement your chosen interior.

One of the smallest pasta shapes on this list is stelline, so named for its tiny star-cut shape with a characteristic hole in the middle. Despite its playful appearance, this noodle isn't just for kids (though it could be a great choice if your offspring refuses dull cuisine). It's commonly used in Italian wedding soups and, like orzo, is a great addition when you want a dense pasta addition to a thin-textured meal. We suggest you refrain from pairing it with hearty or meaty sauces, though, due to its miniature size.

The difference between manicotti and cannelloni is primarily a cultural one — while manicotti is the commonly-used term in the U.S., you'll hear the same dish frequently referred to as cannelloni in Italy. However, there is a subtle difference between the two — cannelloni noodles are often smooth on the outside while manicotti is ridged instead. Regardless, both types are most frequently stuffed and then baked into a casserole-style pasta dish.

If you're thinking that cappelletti looks remarkably similar to tortellini, you're not alone. Though the two are visually nearly indistinguishable, there is a slight difference in their shaping — the name "cappelletti" refers to the "tiny hat" shape of this pasta. It's more common to find cappelletti filled with meat than cheese, and if you want to serve it in accordance with tradition, pair it with a yummy broth.

Another type of stuffed pasta that you may not have heard of is fagottini, which means "little bundles" in Italian. We think this is among the more adorable pasta shapes — the small pouch is made by bundling up a pasta square around a filling and tying it off with some string. Fagottini is most commonly stuffed with a savory filling, but it's not uncommon to find pear among the ingredients used. Similarly to other stuffed pastas, you'll pair fagottini with a lighter sauce to complement its interior.

Where ravioli is made from two sheets of pasta that are formed to encase a filling, our next pasta, agnolotti, consists of a single sheet of pasta folded over its filling and then sealed. Agnolotti is pinched together with ridged edges, providing a way for it to adhere to whatever sauce you may plan to serve with it. However, as you may have guessed, it's not recommended to pair agnolotti with anything that with overwhelm its filling, which is commonly made of wine-stewed meat.

Last but certainly not least is mezzelune, another stuffed pasta that's differentiated by its unique shape. While ravioli and agnolotti are typically square-shaped, mezzelune is typically folded over into a half-moon shape, thus its name. This pasta is often compared to dumplings (and can be filled similarly), but if encountered in the wild, you'll often find it paired with ricotta, spinach, and some type of meat.