What Pasta Goes With What Sauce?

This is a long conversation, and I’m sure every Italian you encounter would love to wax philosophical on this topic. Here’s the scoop, as I understand it: You want to make sure that your choice of pasta can properly “carry” the sauce, and heighten its flavor. For example thin angel hair cannot take the weight of a meat sauce, and a simple aglio olio cannot be appreciated with the thickness of a penne. Tomato and other vegetable-based sauces are often paired with pasta corta (short pasta) like penne rigate, rigatoni, or strozzapreti. Meat sauces are usually paired with pasta lunga all’uovo (long pasta made with egg) such as tagliatelle or pappardelle, while a seafood pasta is usually found with linguine or spaghetti. The moral of the story: pay attantion to the unique marriage between the sauce and the texture of the pasta with it, and make your choices from there.