The World's Smallest Pasta Shapes
The title of the world's smallest pasta shape is held by tempestine, an unfathomably tiny shape that is well under 2mm wide and weighs a minuscule 0.0057g per piece.
Pastina is what Italians call any tiny pasta shape.
If you see the word "pastina" used on a trattoria's menu, it's telling you that your dish (which will almost certainly be a soup or a salad) will contain some very small pasta shapes.
Any pasta with a diameter of 2mm or less is considered a patina. These tiny shapes are designed to add body and texture to soups, salads, and stews rather than be served with a sauce like fusilli, penne, or spaghetti.
There are numerous pasta shapes smaller than orzo.
The smallest shape most people outside of Italy find in their local supermarket is orzo, a real oddity that looks like an overweight grain of rice. As it turns out, though, there are numerous far smaller pasta shapes out there, as we discovered on our adventures around Sardinia.
Our search for the tinniest pasta shape on earth
On our 10-day holiday discovering Sardinia, we set ourselves the challenge of finding the smallest pasta shape on earth. We came home with a couple of dozen contenders, all of which put the UK's offerings to shame in the skinny supermodel department. Here, we're counting them down from 20 to 1.
20.) Gramigna
The grasses that grow in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy inspired this tiny little shape. It's almost always served with Italian pork sausage in a typical Bologna dish called Gramigna alla Salsiccia.
19.) Farfalline
Most Britons will be familiar with farfalle pasta, although they may know it as butterfly or bowtie pasta. Many people, however, don't know that there is a larger version of the shape (farfallone), a ridged version (farfalle rigate), and a much smaller version called farfalline.
18.) Margherite
This funny little shape has numerous different names depending on which region you're in. In the UK, though, Tesco sells it as "soup pasta" to ensure consumers don't just assume it should be served with a sauce like most of the pasta we all enjoy.
17.) Cicioneddos
Sardinians love their gnocchi, and cicioneddos are tiny semolina pasta shapes designed to look like miniature potato gnocchi. The shape hails from the north of the country, where it regularly appears in salads and side dishes.
16.) Ditali Lisci
We can't pretend to be huge fans of tube shapes, and just because Ditali Lisci (which hails from Campania in south-west Italy) is designed to be a cute, miniature version of its larger brother, ditaloni, it hasn't won us over yet.
15.) Le Samueline
This unusual, gluten-free, sinuous pasta shape is made from corn flour, rice flour, and water. Its unique shape makes for an exciting eating experience.
14.) Risoni
You don't need to be a super sleuth to work out that this tiny pasta shape bears more than a passing resemblance to rice. Many people reckon it's even better than arborio rice, provided you cook it similarly by adding the cooking liquid in stages.
13.) Fregola Grossa
Pasta producers go to great lengths to ensure their shapes are consistent so that they cook evenly. This style of fregola is therefore an extremely unusual pasta shape because the size and shape of the pieces vary widely. It can be an exciting meal if you're lucky because every mouthful is different. If you're unlucky, you risk some pieces being overcooked and some being undercooked. Risk it at your peril.
12.) Malloreddus
Often called gnocchetti sardi, this is one of Sardinia's most famous shapes. They love to serve it in a tomato and sausage ragù with saffron and pecorino.
11.) Ditalini Rigati
This dainty little shape takes its inspiration from a thimble and has ridged edges, which makes it equally comfortable clinging to sauces as it is at adding body and flavours to soups and broths.
10.) Quadri
This egg-based pasta is so small that it cooks in under 5 minutes. Like all small pasta shapes, it should be watched like a hawk because it turns mushy if you leave it boiling for a few seconds too long.
9.) Anellini
This tiny hoop shape is the much smaller cousin of the more well-known anelli and is based on the Italian word anello, meaning "a ring." There is no better use for it than the brilliant dish Anellini al Forno, paired with sausage, fennel, and aubergine.
8.) Fregola Sarda
You can hardly turn a corner in Sardinia without seeing fregola for sale. You'd be forgiven for thinking it's couscous, but it's a semolina pasta shape with a nutty flavour from sun-dried and toasted. The most unusual thing about it is that because the tiny pieces have been toasted, each has a slightly different colour, ranging from light yellow to dark brown.
7.) Stelline
Literally meaning "little stars," this shape is loved by kids more than any other on this list, and it offers a great way to introduce them to a lifetime of eating and enjoying pasta.
6.) Risini
This is the little brother of the far better-known risoni. It's so small that we are starting to get into the "what's the point?" territory (and we still have five more shapes to go).
5.) Puntine
Designed to remind you of little fruit seeds, this tiny pasta shape is usually used to add body to broths and consommés.
4.) Pepe Bucato
This is the smallest hoop-shaped pasta on our list and another one that kids seem to love. The shape offers a great way to get children into soups, and that's not always easy.
3.) Quadretti
Traditionally, this tiny square-shaped pasta was made from the offcuts from filled pasta production where there are always plenty of leftovers. It is versatile enough to be added to everything from crystal-clear broths to thick and creamy soups.
2.) Tempestine
Barely larger than a sesame seed, Tempestine pasta shapes are ideal to enrich both vegetable and meat soups.
1.) Tempestine all'uovo
The smallest pasta shape in Sardinia is an egg version of the traditional flour and water tempestine, sold by one of the island's biggest supermarket chains, Conrad.
This pasta shape is so ridiculously small that we had to buy specialist digital scales to measure its weight. It took ten pieces of tempestine before we could be confident that the average weight of a single piece is a minuscule 0.0057g.
Of course, smart alecs will argue that you could simply chop a piece of tempestine in half and create an even smaller shape. That's true, and it's why we never get drawn into the age-old question of "How many pasta shapes are there?" because the answer is infinite.
