Guide
Pasta for soup: the smallest shapes
Why broth calls for the tiny pasta, and which one to drop in.
At the scale of a grain, pasta behaves differently. The little shapes, the pastina, are not just small versions of big ones; they flip the job. A normal shape carries sauce on its surface. A tiny one has so much surface for its size that it absorbs the liquid around it instead, thickening a broth and turning soup into something between a drink and a spoonful.
Stelline and the alphabet
The smallest stars and letters are made for clear broths and for the bowls of children and the convalescent. They cook in a couple of minutes and barely need chewing, the most domestic pasta there is, the one most Italians met first.
Ditalini and tubetti
A step up, little tubes hold their shape in a heartier soup. Ditalini is the pasta in pasta e fagioli and in minestrone, small enough to ride a spoon, sturdy enough not to dissolve.
Orzo and fregola
Bigger still, orzo, shaped like a grain of rice, blurs the line between pasta and grain; it can thicken a soup or stand as a salad or a mock risotto. Fregola, the toasted Sardinian pearl, brings a nutty chew and is simmered with clams. Both are soup pasta that grew up.