Pasta

One of the most basic staples of cooking, fresh and dried pasta is available in a wide range of shapes, sizes, textures, colours and flavours.

With this huge range to choose from, it is important to know what type, shape and flavour of pasta will go best with a particular sauce. Flat, ribbon pastas such as lasagne or tagliatelle are generally eaten with rich meat or vegetable sauces, and are particularly good when baked in a casserole. Thick or chunky sauces do not cling well to long, thin stranded pastas, and so rod-shaped pasta such as spaghetti or chitarra are normally eaten fairly dry, perhaps coated in pesto, or with a light sauce. Shaped pasta such as conchiglie or torchio, and short, tubed pasta (for example penne or ziti) are the best choice for chunky meat sauces as their hollows easily catch and hold onto the thick sauce, whilst larger tubes of pasta (cannelloni and tufoli for example) are usually boiled and then stuffed with cheese or meat before baking. Miniature soup pastas, or pastine, are generally cooked and served broth or soups, although they may also be added to salads.

There are so many different types of pasta that the choice can be quite overwhelming, so to help you out, we've put together an in-depth guide to the range of pasta varieties available.