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A glossary of pasta shapes and names — and delicious recipes to try them. Pasta is one food we can’t get enough of. It comes in so many shapes and types that it keeps things interesting. In the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen, our food editors have developed thousands of pasta recipes. This long pasta shape is amongst the thinnest and works well when tossed in a thin sauce, oil or dressing. It also goes by capellini, which directly translates to “little hair,” and in this case means thin hair. This long pasta is best known for its signature hollow shape — aka its buco, which means hole in Italian — that you can slurp out of like a straw.

It’s good for recipes that require twirling and minimal poking with a fork, like hearty sauces with meatballs. Named for its resemblance to handbells, this shape captures small ingredients, like corn and peas, in the best way so you can get a full bite of your favorite recipe in every forkful. Cavatappi are like longer, more spiraled elbows. They’re relatively thick with ridges, which make them good for carrying sauces and toppings. They’re great for pasta salad dishes that are served warm or cold. These “little thimbles” are perfect for soup. They’re small enough to spoon up and big enough to match the size of larger cuts of veggies and beans.