What is your favorite pasta shape?

strozzapreti - not only is it a great shape for holding sauce and fun to eat, it's got a delightful name: the "priest strangler"

E: typos

Fusilli. The spiral shape allows the right amount of pasta sauce to stick to it so you get a nice pasta-to-sauce ratio.

that's like picking a favorite child, and it's timmy, and penne

Farfalle is the correct answer

It’s completely dish dependent, but if there’s sauce involved I prefer a rigati (ridged) pasta.

Whichever one is currently working it's way into my mouth.

Alphabetti Spaghetti

I make no apologies.

Cascatelli really is the best shape. I also like rotini

Conchiglie, the medium size of shells.

Pipe rigate for cheese based sauces, fusilli (rigatoni) for tomato based sauces.

That pillow shape if it's filled with parmesan.

I'm a ho for orecchiette, I just love how toothsome it is. Maybe not the absolute #1 for sauce retention but I'm all about that texture.

People like hating on elbow but I think it’s quite nice… cavatappi gives me anxiety. I do also really love a standard flat square ravioli.

To eat cooked? Orzo! I love rice and pasta, and they made a rice shaped pasta. It's a win-win!

To eat raw? Wholewheat spaghetti or if I'm feeling especially daring, farfalle.

Bowtie pasta.

It's alphaghetti for yuppies.

Spaghetti/capellini/linguini. Wrapping pasta on the fork is part of the fun!

Alternatively, fusilli.

Penne and other hollow variations are among the least favorite because they can retain a bit of water inside and getting that onto your tongue is not fun.

Idk why but bow tie shaped fucks so hard for me.

fusilli but i pronounce it F. U. Silly

Cavatappi, hands down

Conchiglie - kon-kill-ee-a (last letter rhymes with 'hay')

Little shells, each one a cup for sauce.

Shells. Also linguine and spaghetti

Some dude invented a new pasta shape in the last few years called cascatelli (little waterfall)

NPR did a segment on it

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/22/978877878/for-pasta-lovers-bored-by-spaghetti-theres-a-new-short-wavy-sauce-holding-shape

Yes.

Ziti because the sauce gets up in the hole :)

Bucatini is nice. Or pappardelle.

People can say "penne rigate" or declare not to be Italian without actually writing it

The curly tubes

For mac and cheese: medium shells, ditalini
For red sauce pasta: medium shells, rotini
For pasta alfredo: medium shells, fettuccine

So I guess you could say my favorite pasta is potato gnocchi

Farfalle, because its also a firework. If im not taking fireworks into consideration I'd have to say rigatoni, they have a good heft to them and take on sauce well. Good with butter and hot sauce.

Fusili for the consistent sauce-to-pasta ratio.

Edit: Oops looks like Wardacus beat me to it.

Penne.

Lately I've been really liking gemelli! More pasta per pasta.

Fettuccine. Honestly I just love noodles, and the thicker the better.

If tortellini counts, that’s my preference.

Orecchiette. It's a very small cup (the name means little ear) which holds a little bit of sauce, but not so much that you get overzealous and try to fill it up.

It is absolutely dependent on what I am making.

In general my preference is tortiglioni/elicoidali, but that doesn't work with everything. As long pasta I prefer thick spaghetti-like shapes, like vermicelli, spaghetti alla chitarra or tonnarelli (with egg). Obviously if we are talking about fresh pasta there is also much to choose from, but I would say one of my favorite type is quadrucci, very good in soups. Also good gnocchi are amazing (do they count as pasta?), bad gnocchi are terrible.

Pasta that I don't like the most, probably farfalle and bucatini. Fun fact, bucatini are called "abbotta straccioni" in Rome, which roughly translates to "peasants stuffers", because more uneducated people who wouldn't know how to eat long pasta would "suck" and ingest lots of air (due to the hole) and get filled more, so restaurants could serve smaller portions. To this day, I will take tonnarelli/gnocchi/rigatoni with amatriciana to bucatini any day.

noodle

Lasagna plates if that counts. If not Macaroni. Compromise between shelf space per serving and ease of getting the portion size right (1.25dl raw, 2.5dl cooked). Contender is spaghetti which wins on shelf space but I always end up with too much or too little without resorting to the kitchen scales.

I find the larger variants are hard to get a good mix of sauce and pasta in your mouth regardless if you use a spoon or fork.

Rotini holds lots of whatever sauce plus seems like a great consistency - substantial but not solid

Spaghettini!

Kraft spiral 😩

Fossili!

Baby Shell, makes fantastic mac n cheese

I really like Capeletti, they have a great texture.

Linguine as long as it's cooked correctly. It's toothsome in the right way.

Orzo can fuck all the way off and when it gets to fuckoffville it can fuck off even further.

Lots of americans from these answers but it entirely depends on the sauce. Some types of pasta dont necessarily work with certain dishes. Some sauces work with multiple types.. try making a carbonara with penne or a mac and cheese which seems to be a popular choice here with spaghetti, they just wont work as dishes. Maybe some people jist eat the same pasta dish all the type and thats how they are basimg their answers.

i cant recall italian name of the pasta, but it was like spaghetti, much thicker and hollow inside. the inside gets filled with sauce, super delicous

I've always been partial to wagon wheels.

Ziti's no-nonsense. Dead simple, and great.

telephone

cock and balls