This Is The Best Pasta To Use With Alfredo Sauce

Creamy, and warm, and oh-so-cheesy, Alfredo sauce has to be the most comforting of all the comfort foods. It's the food equivalent of swaddling yourself in a soft fleece blanket at the end of a long day. What kids call "the white pasta sauce" is delicious whether you make it from scratch, pop open a jar, or "cheat" the taste and feel of Alfredo with just three ingredients — cream cheese, garlic, and Parmigiano Reggiano. People spoon Alfredo over all kinds of things: pizza, meatballs, casseroles (via Chowhound). Health-conscious foodies even eat it over "zoodles" (via Wholesome Yum).

If you want to truly enjoy your Alfredo sauce to the fullest, though, you should be picky about what you pair it with. Don't just throw whatever shells or angel hair pasta you have in your pantry into boiling water and assume you're going to achieve maximum deliciousness. There is, indeed, an optimal pasta to serve with Alfredo sauce.

There's a reason why Fettuccine Alfredo is on the menus of so many Italian restaurants. Flat, long noodles — like fettuccine but also pappardelle and linguine — do the best job of standing up to a rich sauce because of their shape (via Food Network.) A more dimensional pasta shape might just shake off the Alfredo like a dog shaking off water, and a fine, delicate noodle might drown in the luxurious heaviness that is this thick, creamy sauce.

"The long thick strands of Fettuccini work like a mop to gather up the rich creamy sauce and deliver it to your hungry mouth," explained Chef Martin Bayer in a Quora post. "Now try that with Orzo or Penne. You can see how it wouldn't be as fun to eat, right?"

But if all you happen to have at home is a single box of orzo and you just have to have Alfredo sauce? You're still going to have a delicious dinner. People like Alfredo sauce so much, they eat it in their ice cream, after all (via Just a Sweet Geek).