Everything on Cooking Spaghetti

Spaghetti is a round-section dried pasta, 1.8–2mm in diameter, made from durum wheat semolina and water. It is the most widely produced pasta in the world and, as a result, the most frequently misused.

The shape works because of surface area and flexibility. The strands coat evenly in smooth, flowing sauces (oil-based, tomato-based, egg-based) and deliver sauce and pasta in the same forkful. It fails with chunky sauces because chunks slide off the round surface and collect at the bottom of the bowl.

Spaghetti is not a neutral vehicle. It has a specific character: firm, slightly chewy when cooked correctly, with a clean wheaty flavour, and it suits dishes built around that character. The dishes below are among the best arguments for it.

Spaghetti Recipes

Spaghetti Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino

The foundation of Italian pasta cooking. Four ingredients, one pan, twenty minutes. The dish teaches the core logic of Italian pasta sauce construction, how garlic infuses oil, how pasta water emulsifies fat, how heat is managed throughout. Master this and the logic of most Italian pasta sauces becomes clear. Find the recipe here.

Spaghetti Pomodoro

The simplest pasta dish and the hardest to do well. No technique to hide behind, no complexity to compensate for poor ingredients. What it demands is the best tinned tomatoes available, good olive oil, and the discipline not to overcomplicate it. Find the recipe here.

Spaghetti Vongole

A Neapolitan dish, built entirely around the quality of the clams. There are two versions: in bianco (without tomato) and in rosso (with tomato). The white version is older and considered the more refined of the two. The clams provide their own broth as they open; that liquid, combined with olive oil and pasta water, becomes the sauce. Find the recipe here.

Spaghetti Bottarga

A Sardinian dish of very few ingredients. Bottarga, the dried, pressed roe of grey mullet, is grated over pasta finished in olive oil and garlic. The flavour is intensely savoury and oceanic. It is one of the oldest pasta dishes still eaten in its original form. Find the recipe here.

Spaghetti al Nero di Seppia

From the Venetian and Sicilian coastlines. Cuttlefish cooked slowly in its own ink, the sauce finished over spaghetti. The ink turns the pasta uniformly black and contributes a deep, briny, mineral flavour that has no substitute. The dish looks dramatic and tastes entirely of the sea. Find the recipe here.