Open a box of spaghetti and a box of penne side by side and you are usually looking at the exact same dough. The shape is the only thing that changes. Barilla, describing its classic cuts, says spaghetti, penne, and fusilli differ in shape alone, because all of them are made from just two ingredients: water and semolina.
That sameness is not an accident. Under Italian law, dried pasta sold there can be made only from durum wheat semolina and water, with no additives or preservatives, according to food-science research published by Springer Nature. The dough is simply pushed through differently shaped dies and then dried.
The one real ingredient difference is egg. The flat Amish egg noodles Hoosiers reach for in chicken and noodles belong to a separate family, made with softer wheat flour and eggs that give them a tender, delicate bite. The same is true of Italian ribbons like tagliatelle and fettuccine. In Italy the split is geographic: egg pasta took hold in the north, around Emilia-Romagna, while eggless semolina shapes like orecchiette stayed southern, according to the Italian mill Mulino Padano.
Shape is not just decoration — it is engineering for sauce. Tubes and ridges, such as the grooves on rigatoni, trap heavy, chunky sauces, while thin strands suit lighter sauces that would slide right off a tube. Pasta pushed through rough bronze dies comes out porous and grips sauce better than the slick kind, even when the dough is identical.
The genuine outliers sit on the modern shelf. Chickpea, lentil, whole wheat, and gluten-free corn or rice pastas are the ones actually made of something else.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.