What is spaghettone? Gentile's four spaghetti, from 1.4 mm to 2.7 mm

Spaghettone is a thick spaghetto. Pastificio Gentile, who have made pasta in Gragnano since 1876, describe theirs as a creation of their own: a strand 2.7 mm across that needs 15 to 17 minutes in the pot. They also make spaghetti in three thinner cuts, and the list below puts all four side by side.

The four thicknesses

• Spaghetti, 4 minutes: 1.4 mm across. Garlic and oil, a fresh tomato sauce or a thin seafood dressing.
• Spaghetti, 8 minutes: 1.9 mm. Marinara, aglio e olio or cacio e pepe.
• Spaghetti, 12 minutes: 2.2 mm. Bolognese, a cream sauce or a long-cooked tomato sauce.
• Spaghettone: 2.7 mm, 15 to 17 minutes. Ragù, carbonara or puttanesca.

The diameters and times are Gentile's own figures. A thin strand suits a light dressing, and a heavy sauce flattens it. Spaghettone works the other way round. A delicate sauce barely registers against a strand that thick, while a ragù or a carbonara has something to hold on to.

Cooking it

Use plenty of well-salted boiling water and start timing when the water comes back to the boil. Drain it a little before the time on the pack, because bronze-drawn pasta keeps cooking once it meets a hot sauce. Keep a ladle of the cooking water. It is cloudy with starch and loosens a sauce that has gone too thick in the pan.

With spaghettone, start tasting at about 14 minutes, a minute before the lower end of the time on the pack, and drain it while the centre is still firm.

Why the surface is rough

Gentile push the dough through bronze dies, which leave a rough surface that sauce clings to. The pasta is then dried slowly by the Cirillo method, three or four days in rooms where heaters stand in for the sun and fans for the wind. An industrial line dries pasta in a day or less. The classic packs are Pasta di Gragnano PGI, a protected name only pasta made in the town may carry.

What is in it

Durum wheat semolina and water, nothing else. It contains gluten, and the classic packs say it may contain traces of soy and mustard. Each pack holds 500 g.

Other long shapes

Bucatini are spaghetti with a hole down the middle, 13 minutes, for amatriciana or cacio e pepe. Linguine are flattened, 10 minutes, and suit oil and seafood such as vongole. There are organic versions of the 12-minute spaghetti and the linguine, and an organic wholewheat spaghetti that tastes more of wheat and takes 8 minutes. The whole range is on the pasta shelf.

More from Gentile: What is calamaretti pasta? and yellow tomatoes: which jar for which dish?

Reviewed 26 September 2026.