From Penne to Rigatoni: How to Cook Every Pasta Shape
Most zero waste shops now sell dry pasta and there are also plastic-free pasta brands available. Use these with vegan Parmesan, and here read a guide on how to cook and use each type of pasta. Mangia!
Keep fresh pasta dough away from children and pets, and keep pets away from garlic/onion/shallots/leeks/chives.
Unless you have a food waste bin (made into biogas), it’s best to just bin allium scraps (garlic/onion/shallots/leeks/chives), as acids could harm compost creatures.
For tinned ingredients, rinse/remove lids (or pop ring-pulls over holes) then step on the can to pinch the inner rims together, to avoid wildlife getting trapped at recycling points.
How to cook pasta properly
Good pasta requires a large pot of boiling water, ideally with sea salt (in Italy, not salting pasta water renames it ‘silly pasta!’) Once the pot has come to a rolling boil, stir in your pasta and begin to taste, around 2 minutes before the pack instructions says so. You want it to have an ‘al dente’ bite, but still be cooked!
Save 1 cup of starchy pasta water before draining (which you can use to bind the pasta and chosen sauce together). Don’t rinse your pasta (this removes the starch that helps the sauce cling to the pasta).
Different pastas (and how to use them)
- Spaghetti is best for a classic tomato sauce, aglio e olio or vegan carbonara.
- Linguine is flatter than spaghetti, and good for white wine sauces.
- Bucatini is even thicker, and good for thicker sauces.
- Rigatoni are large ridged tubes that are good for vegan bolognese or ragu.
- Penne rigate have angled cuts with surface ridges, ideal for tomato or vegan pesto dishes.
- Macaroni are small carved tubes, ideal for salads with vegan mayo or a plant-based macaroni cheese.
- Ditalini are the tiny pasta tubes, used for minestrone soup.
- Fusili are shaped like corkscrews and good for vegan pesto.
- Farfalle (butterflies) pasta have wide ‘wings’ that easily hold onto to vegan creamy sauces. They are also nice in cold pasta salads.
- Conchiglie (shells) act like small ‘spoons’, to scoop up thick sauces
- Orecchitte (little ears) are good with crumbled vegan sausage pasta dishes.
