Overview
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Dishes made with pasta are comfort food, and kids pick up that sense when they are very young. So having an arsenal of pasta recipes that call for different shapes combined with a variety of ingredients lets you please the kiddos at your house and still keep it interesting. But which pasta shapes should be used in the myriad ways this staple of family meals can be cooked? Get educated on whether you need spaghetti, linguine or conchiglie for your concoctions, and you'll hear raves all around the table.
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Conchiglie (Shells)
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Conchiglie, or shells, work best with cheesy, thick and chunky tomato- or pesto-based sauces that cling to the pasta. Jumbo shells, or conchiglioni, are perfect for stuffing with meat, cheeses or seafood, like these crab-stuffed jumbo shells. Shells are also an old standby for pasta salads since the dressing stays on the pasta and not at the bottom of the bowl.
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Fettuccine
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Fettuccine Alfredo, with its rich sauce of cream, butter, Parmesan cheese and seasonings, is THE classic fettuccine dish. Fettuccine is a type of ribbon pasta, flat, thick and long. It works best with cream sauces, and that is the reason it's most often encountered in fettuccine Alfredo. Variations on this theme also work, but keep the sauce creamy. One such variant is fettuccine with a basic cream sauce and ham.
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Spaghetti
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Spaghetti with tomato sauce is just about the most basic -- and ubiquitous -- Italian food in the United States, with the possible exception of pizza. Spaghetti is classified as a pasta rod, and it plays best with light sauces, such as tomato or olive oil and basil. Rod pasta has different names depending on its thickness; other common versions are angel hair and vermicelli, which are both thinner than spaghetti and go best with very thin sauces.
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Farfalle
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Farfalle is one of the pasta world's most fun shapes. Often called bow-tie pasta, it works best with chunky sauces and in pasta salads like its cousin conchiglie. Unlike shells, however, farfalle adds charm and whimsy to any dish you use it in, a sure-fire way to attract your kids' attention, even if it's surrounded by veggies, as seen here.
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Tortellini
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Tortellini is a type of pasta that comes stuffed with cheeses, meats, mushrooms or blends of those ingredients. It's at its tasty best with light sauces such as marinara or an olive oil-based sauce garnished with fresh beans, as seen here. Children find tortellini fun because there's a surprise inside. Just be sure that surprise is on your kids' list of favorites to keep them coming back for more.
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Penne
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Penne is a tubular type of pasta and is one of the most versatile kinds. It makes casseroles sing, marries well with thick meat sauces and turns a salad bursting with greens into a one-dish meal, as seen here. Penne rigate, or penne with ridges, is the best choice for a saucy recipe since the ridges hold the sauce well.
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Linguine
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Linguine, like its cousin fettuccine, is a ribbon pasta, but it's the skinny one of the family. Linguine is most often seen as a backdrop for seafood, as in the linguine and seafood dish here; the pasta's lighter character lets the flavor of the seafood shine through when heavier pastas might overwhelm it. Linguine can certainly rise to the occasion if you want to team it with a heavier sauce, however, and is a good substitute for fettuccine when you desire a dish that's a little less pasta-heavy.
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Fusilli
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Fusilli looks like a corkscrew and adds interest to any recipe you use it in. Like conchiglie and penne, this pasta shape, with its hills and valleys, matches best with chunky, heavy sauces and casseroles. It also makes pasta salads tasty and interesting by its ability to hold the dressing -- and the salad -- together and the unusual look it imparts. It just begs to be eaten.
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