Why Stanley Tucci's Favorite Pasta Shape Is Superior

Actor, author, and celebrated foodie Stanley Tucci is back at it again, spreading his love of Italian food just in time for the holidays. In a new video campaign on YouTube, British comic Diane Morgan sits down with Tucci for a hilariously cringey, tongue-in-cheek interview as a part of San Pellegrino's "Italian Time" campaign. As they speak about all things Italian, the Italian-American actor is asked which pasta shape he prefers. "Tubes," he replies without hesitation. When asked why, he adds that they are "just more versatile."

While traditional pasta wisdom would advise pairing your sauce or dish with its perfect pasta mate, Tucci's choice makes a case for a more general category, a hardworking pasta pick that's done its fair share of the heavy lifting — the tube. His choice of tubes is one that works best precisely because the pasta's versatility allows it to shine in the greatest number of situations, all without having to spend too much time drilling down to consider exactly which noodle best showcases which sauce (i.e., spaghetti, mafalda, macaroni, etc.).

It's a real time saver when you're just looking to get dinner on the table in a hurry. But what is it exactly about tubes that makes them a superior choice? Besides the versatility Tucci's mentions, it's the sheer amount of sauce and meat or veggies that these little babies can hold that truly makes tubes the purest, most magical choice for, well, just about any pasta sauce you enjoy. As Tucci's noted before, don't ignore these Italian dishes.

As Tucci notes in his 2021 memoir, "Taste: My Life Through Food," pairing the wrong sauces and pastas together is anathema to most Italians, but when made to choose, Tucci picks hollow-tube shapes like bucatini, rigatoni, penne, macaroni, and ziti (plus cannelloni and manicotti for stuffing). These are not only delicious bathed in sauces like Penne alla Vodka or Bolognese, but they're also formidable in baked dishes and soups. These pastas do double-duty, keeping noodles toothsome while not buckling under the weight of those rich and creamy or meaty sauces.

While Tucci's favorite dish, spaghetti alla Nerano, obviously and eponymously features spaghetti, he also has great affection for a family favorite he credits with nursing him back to health after a battle with mouth cancer in 2017: pasta fagioli. This beloved classic Italian dish features beans and greens in a tomato-y broth with "little thimble"-shaped tubes called ditalini. "I lived on this dish for a very long time," he told ABC News in 2021.

Additionally, in his book, Tucci notes that the soup "helped rebuild my strength." As he told Today when making the dish on-air, it's either ditalini or "some sort of tubular pasta" that he uses for his pasta fagioli. From his Pasta all Norma (rigatoni and ziti) and Ragu Tucci (ziti rigate or penne rigati) noted in his book, to the Salsa alla Maria Rosa (served over penne) he shared on another episode of Today, the hollows in these noodles let you bask in the full glory of a great sauce.