What's The Most Popular Pasta Shape In Italy?

When you think of Italian cuisine, chances are pasta is one of the first things that comes to mind. There are countless iconic pasta dishes with simple yet mouthwatering sauces that find their way onto Italians' plates regularly. If you've ever been curious about how much pasta Italians eat, you may not be surprised to learn they enjoy more than any other nation. A 2022 Statista survey indicated that Italians consumed an average of about 23 kilograms (around 50 pounds) of pasta per person that year, with 17% also indicating in a 2023 survey that they eat the dish 6-7 days per week. With an estimated 350 types of pasta available, there are plenty of options, but Italians like to keep it simple. According to a survey of 1,057 Italians released in October 2023, via Statista, 70% named spaghetti as the type of pasta they consume the most often, with penne and fusilli taking second and third place, respectively.

Spaghetti is believed to have originated in the 12th century in Sicily. It looked a bit different then, with strands about twice the length they typically are today, which would certainly necessitate a fair bit of twirling of those cooked noodles. Since Italians have been enjoying the classic pasta for centuries, they've gotten good at figuring out just which sauces and preparation styles make for the most irresistible pasta dishes. Read on to learn how to eat spaghetti like a true Italian (hint: simplicity is key).

No matter how good your pasta sauce is, your dish won't taste right if you've cooked the noodles improperly, so make sure you're avoiding the biggest mistakes everyone makes when cooking spaghetti such as not adequately salting your pasta water or selecting a pot that's way too small. Once you've mastered the perfect al dente spaghetti as the base for your dish, it's time to figure out the best sauce to pair with it. You'll want to keep it simple and classic for a long, thin noodle like spaghetti, opting for light sauces that can coat the spaghetti strands. That's right — even though bolognese sauce is probably one of the most common sauces that Americans pair with spaghetti, the heavy, meaty sauce is actually a bit overwhelming for the delicate noodle and better suited to shapes like the also-popular penne or long but hollow bucatini. 

However, that doesn't mean you can't whip up a decadent spaghetti dish with a creamy sauce or proteins mixed in. Seafood sauces also pair beautifully with spaghetti; if you want something a bit richer, cream-based sauces can also work. Basically, you just don't want a sauce that weighs those thin strands of spaghetti down. And, one of the most classic spaghetti dishes is also one of the simplest — we have a recipe for the beloved aglio e olio if you want to dine like Italians do tonight.