26 Types Of Pasta Sauce Explained

It is assumed that over 600 types of pasta exist in the world (via Share the Pasta). Depending on the shape of each pasta, Italian cuisine is careful to pair it with the right type of sauce. Thin and delicate pasta requires equally light butter or oil-based sauces, whereas cream and cheese sauces are best left to sturdier strands (via Dellalo). Tube-shaped pasta is ideal for meaty or chunky tomato sauces that can nestle inside the hollow centers. Pairing your pasta shape with the right type of sauce can make all the difference between a dry plate of pasta and one that generously packs the sauce in each bite.

Different regions of Italy are famous for different kinds of pasta sauces. In northern Italy, cold temperatures, mountainous terrain, and a preference for gamey meats mean that the region is home to meaty sauces. In contrast, ingredients like tomatoes, eggplants, and olives grow in abundance thanks to the warm climate of southern Italy. Southern Italy also tends to use more pepper than the north, and the region's coastline makes seafood a popular ingredient.

Interestingly, some of the most common pasta dishes — like spaghetti and meatballs or fettuccine alfredo — were actually invented in America. An influx of Italian immigrants in the U.S. has given rise to an entire cuisine known as Italian-American (via More Time To Travel). As a result, there are a ton of pasta sauces today, each of which serves a saucy purpose of its own.

You'll be surprised to know that the original version of the alfredo sauce is said to have looked nothing like the cheesy and creamy mix that we know today. According to Forbes, the sauce was invented in 1914 by Rome-based restaurateur Alfredo Di Lelio. In an attempt to make a pasta dish that would please his wife, who had lost her appetite after giving birth, he made a dish called Fettuccine all'Alfredo with three ingredients that she could stomach — butter, Parmigiano Reggiano, and fettucine. Shockingly, the original version of alfredo sauce had no cream, flour, or herbs — it didn't even have garlic! All that gave the sauce its flavor was a rich triple cream butter and cheese that was cut from the core of a Parmigiano Reggiano wheel.

When alfredo sauce and Fettuccine all'Alfredo made their way to the U.S. — thanks to Hollywood stars Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford, whose love for the dish gave it a press boost — American cooks were faced with a problem. According to Saveur, the cheese and butter in the states were far inferior in quality to the Italian ingredients of the original Di Lelio recipe. As a result, it's likely that Americans added cream to the sauce to mimic the creaminess of the original alfredo. To date, most restaurants in Italy will have two kinds of alfredo sauce on their menu — al burro (with butter) or alla crema (with cream) for the tourists. What both versions have in common though, is the use of fettuccine pasta.

From Rome and the Lazio region, arrabbiata is a simple sauce made from equally simple ingredients: tomatoes, pecorino cheese, garlic, and oil (via Eat & Walk Italy). However, the most significant ingredient that goes into the making of arrabbiata sauce is chili pepper. In fact, MasterClass says that the word arrabbiata is Italian for angry, meaning spicy and arrabbiata go hand-in-hand. 

While American versions of arrabbiata tend to leave out the meat, MasterClass says that Roman arrabbiata usually has pancetta. Whether or not you choose to add pancetta, the simplicity of arrabbiata sauce means that it's important to nail the few ingredients that go into its making. Choosing fresh tomatoes in season over canned ones, whole dried peperoncini rossi or hot red peppers over chili flakes, and pecorino romano over parmesan can make all the difference. Best eaten tossed in penne pasta, arrabbiata sauce will go down easier with a glass of red wine to alleviate its spicy heat.

Pesto is one of the rare pasta sauces that doesn't call for tomatoes or meat, and it doesn't need to be cooked either. In fact, Paesana brand pasta sauces state that pesto should never come in contact with any heat that's not the residual warmth of freshly cooked pasta or meat. Also called pesto alla Genovese, pesto comes from Genoa, the capital of the Liguria region (via Italian Traditions). According to Saveur, pesto gets its name from pestare, the Italian verb for "to crush." 

The traditional bright green-colored pesto consists of pine nuts, basil, hard Italian cheese, and garlic, all ground together in a coarse paste using extra virgin olive oil (via Eat & Walk Italy). As with most pasta sauces, however, plenty of pesto variations exist, including versions made with pistachios, walnuts, fruits, and vegetables. Pasaena says it's best to use pasta shapes with curves and ridges with pesto. The reason is that these shapes will help the oil-based pesto sauce cling onto them better, which is why fusilli, rotini, and farfalle are popular types of pasta to serve with pesto. You may even want your pesto to linger around in the refrigerator for a few days before you use it, as the sauce's flavor will only intensify over time.

Often confused with a plain tomato sauce, Substitute Cooking says that marinara is less thick in texture and easier to cook than the former. Made with tomatoes, garlic, crushed red pepper, and basil, the name of the sauce is commonly believed to have originated from Italian sea merchants, giving the sauce its informal name, "mariner-style" sauce (via Paesana). Delighted Cooking also adds that marinara was preferred on ships, possibly because its lack of meat made it easier to store on long journeys before refrigeration.

Although marinara is delicious by itself, the sauce can also be used as a base for the more complicated tomato-based sauces (via Fork + Plate). According to Paesana, the classic marinara sauce uses San Marzano tomatoes that are low in acidity. While this makes marinara a simple sauce that is quick and easy to make, it also means that the sauce lacks the complex flavor profile of most other pasta sauces. However, the simplicity of marinara can work in your favor if you want a sauce that will allow the flavor of freshly prepared pasta to shine without overpowering it.

Simpled translated from Italian as "garlic and oil," aglio e olio is as simple as a pasta sauce gets. The Dickinson Press even compares the sauce to the grown-up version of plain buttered noodles. Sometimes, hot chili peppers get added to the mix, and the sauce is called aglio olio e peperoncino. According to The Pasta Project, along with puttanesca and scarpariello, aglio e olio is considered to be a part of the poor man's recipes (cucina povera) from the cuisine of Naples.

Because aglio e olio requires only a handful of ingredients, how and when you use them makes all the difference. Some prefer to coarsely chop peeled garlic into chunks, whereas others add entire garlic cloves to oil and pluck them out once the garlicky flavor is infused into it. Whatever you do with the garlic, make sure not to overcook and burn it. Peperoncini, if used, are best when added fresh and deseeded. Traditional aglio e olio recipes usually forgo cheese, but a fresh hard Italian cheese like Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano Reggiano can be a nice addition. As for the olive oil, the better its quality, the better your sauce will taste. 

Traditionally, the sauce calls for long noodle-like pasta such as vermicelli, spaghetti, or linguine. It's also a good idea to save your pasta water for this sauce, as the starchy water can help the oil-based sauce thicken and soften the garlic pieces so that they blend with the pasta.

While quattro formaggi is a name famously given to four-cheese pizzas, it also happens to be a popular pasta sauce. As the name suggests, quattro formaggi is made from four kinds of cheese. Unlike several other pasta sauces that come with a strict set of dos and don'ts — disregarding which is blasphemous — the four-cheese sauce surprisingly has no rules! As long as you're using four different varieties, The Wise Geek says that you could even mix soft and hard cheeses with different flavors and textures.

The choice of cheese is yours, but one you probably want to avoid is mozzarella. Though it's a staple of Italian cuisine (and would almost certainly be found on a four-cheese pizza), it doesn't blend well into pasta sauces. Luckily, there are plenty of other options, including provolone, fontina, ricotta, gorgonzola, and of course a dusting of Parmigiano Reggiano to finish off your quattro formaggi.

Both the name of the dish and the name of the sauce itself, cacio e pepe is made using just three ingredients: cacio (cheese, specifically from sheep's milk), pepe (black pepper), and pasta (via BBC Travel). Popular theories claim that it was Italian shepherds who invented the cacio e pepe that we know today. Traveling for several months of the year in the Apennine Mountains, they carried with them dried pasta, black pepper, and cheese — three ingredients that were easy to transport, easy to store, and produced a saucy dish that was warming on cold nights. While they carried the pasta with them — usually tonnarelli — renowned chef Lidia Bastianich told Greatist that the cheese was made fresh from sheep's milk and was usually Pecorino.

As the sauce made its way to the U.S., ingredients like cream, butter, and olive oil often got added to the sauce. Nevertheless, all a traditional cacio e pepe needs are good quality cheese and a generous sprinkle of black pepper. The Guardian says that while tonnarelli or a square cut of spaghetti is preferred in Roman cacio e pepe, pici is another popular pasta that goes with the sauce. Some even prefer paccheri or rigatoni made from wholemeal flour, which is thought to go well with the salty flavor of the sheep's milk cheese.

Made with only three ingredients, gricia is a peculiar pasta sauce in that it requires no tomatoes, oil, or eggs. Instead, the Roman sauce is made with Pecorino Romano, black pepper, and guanciale (via Italy Magazine). Some credit the town of Amatrice and its people with inventing gricia who, after moving to Rome, added tomatoes to the mix and gave the world the hot amatriciana. The Pasta Project even adds that gricia is often referred to as the white amatriciana.

Others say that the sauce comes from the town of Griciano situated close to Amatrice. Regardless of the theory you believe, gricia along with carbonara, cacio e pepe, and amatriciana, makes an important part of Rome's and Lazio's cuisine. It is even believed that gricia is the oldest of the four Lazio sauces, the base from which the other three sauces are made.

Because of its simplicity, it is important that you use guanciale and not pancetta if you're making the sauce at home. Additionally, while you could swap the pecorino for parmesan, the sauce will lack the sharp saltiness that is needed to balance the intensity of the guanciale. Some also tend to add red chili peppers, onions, and garlic to the sauce, but if you want it to be as close to the original Italian sauce as possible, it might be better to stick to just the three main ingredients. Once done, the sauce can be tossed with spaghetti or rigatoni and served.

Sometimes a simple sauce is all you need, and that is the case with brown butter and sage sauce. With only three ingredients, you can easily bring this sauce together for an unforgettable meal. Brown butter and sage sauce include the namesake ingredients with a little garlic, and voila — it transforms these basic ingredients into a sauce that is anything but basic. This sauce works well with a complex pasta like gnocchi or butternut squash ravioli. Adding a fourth ingredient like walnuts adds some texture and contrasts the creamy butter and rich ravioli.

Making a sauce like this requires the best ingredients; fresh sage and rich butter are the key. Fresh sage has a deep earthy aroma and is commonly used to balance out a creamy, buttery sauce. According to SPICEography, fresh sage is excellent with starches like potatoes and pasta, while dried sage is ideal for roasted meats, like classic Thanksgiving turkey. When whipping up a butter sauce, timing is important, because brown butter can quickly turn to burnt black butter if you aren't paying attention. So keep the heat on low and stir frequently for a successful brown butter sauce.

Fra diavolo translates to "brother devil" and is a spicy red sauce usually paired with seafood. The sauce's origins are debatable, with some claiming that it is traditional Italian sauce and others claiming it is an Italian-American invention of the 1930s (via The New York Times). The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. This spicy sauce reflects southern Italian cooking, where the cuisine has been heavily influenced by the surrounding region and spicy sauces are common. Likewise, the fact that the sauce is primarily associated with shrimp, lobster, and other seafood is typical of the cuisine in southern Italy. It would be unusual to pair fra diavolo with other proteins like beef and pork.

Fra diavolo's murky origin story shouldn't detract from the unique qualities of the dish. It's a simple red sauce with garlic, parsley, and red pepper flakes. The heat is adjustable, so depending on the chef, it can range from mildly spicy to super spicy.

Béchamel sauce is a white sauce made with milk, flour, and butter. According to Science of Cooking, the sauce was first included in a French cookbook in 1651. Although this first version was made with veal stock, today's béchamel leaves out the stock.

Béchamel is now considered one of the five mother sauces of French cooking. The other four are velouté, espagnole, hollandaise, and tomato. The sauces were developed by French chef Auguste Escoffierare, and are considered the base of French cooking where many quintessential French dishes start (via Healthline).

While béchamel sauce only has three ingredients, it takes some skill and patience to get it right — after all, you don't want a consistency that's too thick or thin. But it is worth the effort to perfect because it is perfect in many dishes. You can use béchamel with proteins like chicken and seafood, pair it with vegetables, or use it to make a creamy casserole. While it is a French sauce, Italian cuisine has adopted it. It's great for binding layers of cheese in baked pasta dishes like ziti or lasagna.

Squid ink, or nerro di seppia, is a unique pasta sauce that is made with umami-rich squid or cuttlefish ink. Squid ink comes from cephalopods and is a black ink that is part of their protective system. When in danger, they squirt the black ink to cloud the water. According to The Guardian, squid ink has been used in the past for medicinal purposes to boost the immune system and as an anti-microbial. It was commonly used in the arts throughout the 1800s (via Healthline). While it boasts several health benefits, squid ink is used sparingly. A little goes a long way, so it's doubtful you could eat enough to actually see any health benefits. Nowadays, it is used as a flavor enhancer and a food dye. It's difficult to know when this pasta dish was created, as you can find squid ink throughout the Mediterranean, and it is also popular in Japanese cuisine.

Nero di seppia is well-known from Sicily to Venice, where local fishermen would use every part of the squid or cuttlefish, even the ink. If you are trying nero di seppia for the first time, don't be surprised if your teeth and tongue turn black. It might not be an ideal meal for a first date. But its unique color and briny, umami flavor will leave a definite first impression.

Colatura di alici is an anchovy sauce made in Cetara, Italy. The name translates directly to anchovy drippings, which is exactly what the sauce is. According to Culinary Historians from New York, the anchovies are caught on the Amalfi coast throughout the spring and summer seasons, then filleted, salted, and stored to ferment with a weight on top to push out the juices. The juices that seep out are the colatura di alici. The entire process takes months and reaches the proper fermentation level close to the Christmas season, making it a seasonal delicacy eaten during the holidays (via Amalfi Coast). Similar to flavored olive oil, colatura di alici is drizzled on pasta, focaccia, roasted vegetables, or any other dish that would benefit from the rich umami taste.

Much like prosciutto, Parmigiano Reggiano, and balsamic vinegar, colatura di alici has DOP status, meaning that it must be processed and packaged in the region where it originated. Keep that in mind when looking to purchase a bottle of this amber-colored fermented fish sauce.