Pasta, a food darling of both Italy and America, comes in hundreds of shapes — more than 300 by some counts. There are long strands, round and flat, thin and wide, and twisty, ruffled, tube, and ...

Spaghetti is the classic pasta shape in the U.S., so much so that it almost stands in as a term for pasta itself. However, its wide-ranging appeal causes it to suffer from a "jack of all trades ...

Small shapes are also lovely in pasta salad and hold up well when refrigerated. For a salad with no awkward size differential, dice the vegetables in your salad to be about the same size as the pasta.

Consider that the type of pasta you'll want to use is one that's on the larger side with a fair amount of surface area to hold a lot of sauce and cheese — like big shells, farfalle, pappardelle ...

From spaghetti to orecchiette, shape is what gives pasta its name. Learn more about pasta as a versatile, staple food with Niki Davis.

5. Ditalini. Pasta e fagioli, or pasta and beans, is one of my all-time favorite Italian dishes, and it often utilizes ditalini, which are tiny, short tubes not much larger than fregola.

For a pasta that everyone will love—especially kids—use any small cookie cutter shape you like. Use heart cutters, stars, trees, pumpkins, or dinosaurs. As long as it’s small enough to ...