How to Serve and Eat Pasta Like a True Italian

At Pasta Evangelists, we owe a great deal to the time-honoured traditions of our Italian ancestors. We use recipes that have been handed down through generations, with each incarnation getting ever closer to pasta perfection. But that’s not all we’ve learnt.

Too many people commit sins against Italian food, but particularly against pasta. They either cook it for far too long or drown it in sauce. We want to put our expertise to good use. So, we’ve assembled our guide to serving pasta the Italian way – featuring tips from our Head Chef Roberta D’Elia, as well as Michelin-certified guidance from our ambassador, Chef Danilo Cortellini, former-Head Chef at the Italian Embassy in London. Buona fortuna!

Pick the right pasta for your sauce 

Before we get to cooking (and eating) pasta like an Italian, there are two important decisions to make: what pasta, and, with what sauce? It might be tempting to decide on a sauce and then serve it with whatever pasta you have to hand, but pairing suitable shapes and sauces can make all the difference to your final dish. 

In Italy, it’s common for different regions to match different shapes and sauces based on local traditions. Even so, Italians are united in their belief that certain pasta shapes are better suited to certain styles of sauce – and this comes down to how each shape interacts with it.

Take bolognese; you might be used to eating it with spaghetti, but no self-respecting Italian would ever serve a meaty ragú like this with such a thin pasta shape. Substantial sauces call for substantial pasta shapes, so a wider, flatter shape like tagliatelle or pappardelle is more appropriate. 

To find out which shapes and sauces marry up harmoniously, check out our guide to pasta pairing, or let Chef Roberta talk you through it in this video*.

*That said, if your sauce of choice is tomato ketchup, we’re not sure Chef Roberta can help you…

Get your portion size right

Pasta is an intrinsic part of daily life in Italy, but you won’t catch Italians gorging themselves on huge portions. 

Our ultimate guide to pasta portion sizes has everything you need to get your portion size right, whether you’re cooking pasta for a dinner party or just for yourself. But to recap, typical Italian guidelines recommend the following quantities of uncooked pasta per person: 

• 60-100g of dried pasta
• 70-120g of fresh pasta
• 100-130g of gnocchi
• 120-150g of filled pasta (like ravioli or tortellini)

The lower end of these ranges might seem small compared to the portions we’re used to in the UK, but that’s because of the way Italians eat their pasta. Pasta is often served as a primo (first course), with a meat, seafood or vegetable course called a secondo coming after that. 

To do as the Italians do, try serving a smaller portion of pasta as a primo for an Italian-inspired dinner party, or as precursor to a meat, fish or vegetable main. If you’re keen to try this out at your next dinner party, Chef Roberta recommends the following quantities:

• A pasta primo for a three course dinner: 90g per person
• A pasta primo for a dinner with more than three courses: 70g per person

Of course, if pasta is the main event, you’ll likely need a bigger portion. In this case, we’d go for:

• 100g of dried pasta per person
• 120g of fresh pasta per person
• 130g of gnocchi per person
• 150g of filled pasta per person

Cook your pasta properly

If you’re going to eat pasta like an Italian, you need to cook your pasta like the Italians do. Ask any Italian how pasta should be cooked and you’ll receive the same response: al dente. Cooking pasta al dente – literally translating as ‘to the tooth’ – is a national obsession in Italy. 

In general, al dente refers to pasta that is cooked, but still firm when bitten. Quite how much bite though, is up for discussion. In Italy, this varies according to personal taste and regional traditions, with some Italians preferring less bite, and others preferring pasta that’s molto al dente (very al dente). 

Regardless of where they sit on the al dente scale, all Italians agree on a few golden pasta cooking rules:

• It all starts with the water: Before you add any pasta, your water needs to be at a rolling boil. Next, add plenty of salt. In her book ‘On Pasta’, Italian authority Anna del Conte poetically states that “the water should be as salty as the Mediterranean”, but a formula makes things easier. Chef Roberta recommends 1 litre of water for every 100g of pasta that you’re cooking, and 10g of coarse salt for each litre.

• Say no to snapping: Snapping pasta lunga (long pasta) shapes is a cardinal sin – after all, the strands are designed to be twirled around a fork (more on that later). Instead, let strands of spaghetti or linguine fan out, easing them into the water with the back of a wooden spoon as they soften.

• Stir, stir and stir again: Forget wasting precious olive oil by adding it to your pasta water. The best way to stop pasta sticking is by giving it a good stir as soon as you add your shapes to the water, and at regular intervals whilst the pasta cooks.

• Time to taste: The best way to tell if your pasta is cooked al dente is to taste it. For dried pasta, aim to taste your pasta around two minutes before the indicated cooking time. Fresh pasta usually cooks within four minutes, so test it after a couple of minutes.

• Don’t waste your water: Draining your pasta and letting all the cooking water run down the sink is a crime. Before draining, make sure you save a big cup of the starchy water; the excess starch helps the sauce bond to the pasta. And please, never rinse your pasta after draining it – all you’re doing is washing away all that useful starch. 

A final plea from Chef Roberta: “Please don’t throw your pasta against the wall to check if it’s cooked, my mamma would keel over at such a sight! To check if your pasta is cooked, either taste it or take a piece from the water and turn it – if there’s a thin white dot or line at the centre, then perfetto, the pasta is definitely al dente.”

Head to our guide for more tips on how to cook your pasta to perfection, or follow along with Chef Roberta as she shares the secrets behind cooking fresh pasta in the video below.

Combining your pasta and sauce

Once you’ve cooked the pasta to your preferred level of al dente, it’s time to get saucy. But before you bathe your pasta in sauce, we’d urge you to exercise some Italian-inspired restraint. 

Italians call pasta with sauce pastasciutta (literally ‘dry pasta’), deliberately differentiating it from the altogether wetter pasta in brodo (pasta served in broth). This doesn’t mean your pasta will actually be dry – it just means dressing your pasta with a generous coating of sauce, rather than drowning it in a puddle.

Here’s a handy rule of thumb: 

One more thing: always add your pasta to your bubbling pan of sauce, rather than putting your cooked pasta on a plate and pouring the sauce on top. This is where the cup of pasta water you saved earlier comes into its own. A ladle or two of the starchy water (and some enthusiastic swishing of your pan) will bring your dish together and make sure your pasta is well coated in sauce. 

As Chef Danilo explains: “This step is even more important when your sauce doesn’t have a tomato sauce or liquid base, like a pesto or garlic and chilli pasta. The starchy water will emulsify with the fats and create a sauce to coat the pasta with.”

Know when to add cheese, and when not to

Italians are fond of their formaggio, whether that’s as part of a cheeseboard, as an antipasto, or sprinkled over pasta. But true Italians don’t just throw a hefty handful of parmesan over every pasta dish.

One golden rule applies here: if your pasta dish contains fish or seafood, then grating cheese on top is a major faux pas. Whether they’re tucking into a delicate seafood tagliatelle or a gently spiced crab linguine, Italians agree that adding cheese overpowers the flavours of seafood.

Chef Danilo says: “As a rule of thumb, Italians don’t add cheese to fish-based pasta sauces. For me, an exception to the rule is octopus ragù; I love a bit of pecorino cheese on top as the strong sauce can take it – just don’t tell my family!”

And just as different pasta shapes suit certain sauces, different cheeses pair better with different pasta dishes. Grainy – or ‘grana’ – style cheeses like Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano both work wonderfully grated over a host of pasta dishes. In contrast, a salty sheep’s cheese like Pecorino Romano melts willingly, so it’s ideal for enriching sauces, particularly the Roman classics of cacio e pepe, carbonara and amatriciana.

Check out our guide to the best Italian cheeses for pasta, or let Chef Roberta walk you through your options in this video.

Table manners

So you’ve matched your pasta shape to your sauce, thought about your portion, cooked it to perfection and combined it with your sauce and cheese (or not, in the case of seafood pasta). Time to eat – just try not to fall foul of Italian etiquette at the last hurdle. 

Italians aren’t uptight about table manners, but there’s one thing they – and in particular, Chef Roberta – can’t abide: using a knife to cut up strand pasta shapes. Just as you should never snap your spaghetti before cooking it, neither should you cut up the strands once they reach your plate. Spaghetti, linguine and other strand pasta shapes were deliberately designed to be twirled around your fork, rather than cut, and all Italians learn to master this technique as children.

As Chef Roberta explains: “The only people who are allowed to cut spaghetti are two-year olds! I remember my mamma doing spaghetti-twirling ‘training’ with us when we’re about three years old. After that, we saw cutting spaghetti as something ‘babies’ did.”

A final tip, unless you’re a child, twirling your spaghetti against the surface of a spoon might get you a few strange looks in Italy. The correct technique involves just using a fork, then twirling your pasta against the surface of your plate. The only time it’s acceptable to use a spoon for pasta is when it’s in a broth or soup – like pasta in brodo.