Match Your Pasta With The Right Sauce

Nothing’s worse than eating a big bowl of pasta only to see at the end that all of your sauce is still sitting in the bottom of the bowl and never stuck to the pasta properly. In Italy, there are pretty strict rules about the types of sauces that go with the right types of pastas, but the folks at America’s Test Kitchen have a great one-minute guide that will ensure every forkful of your pasta dishes have just the right noodle-to-sauce balance.

You don’t want super-chunky sauces with thin noodles because the sauce will separate from the noodles when you eat. Instead, pair your thin noodles like angel hair and spaghetti with smooth sauces that will cling to the noodles when you eat them. Big noodles like rigatoni are well paired with chunkier sauces because there’s space inside to hold them, and the texture of the noodle catches sauce when you grab a forkful. If you’re a pasta fan, this may not be news to you. For the rest of us though, it’s a simple guide to better pasta dishes.

What do you think? Too much trouble to remember for a bowl of noodles, or easy-to-remember tricks for better pasta dinners? Share your thoughts — and favourite pasta sauces — in the comments below.

Which Pasta Shape Goes with Which Sauce? [America’s Test Kitchen]