Nothing Disappears as Quickly as a Pasta Salad
By: Brier Barclay
August 28, 2025
Instructions
Nothing disappears as quickly as a pasta salad when you have guests over. It's the ultimate in go-to get-together food, especially during the summer. But which is the best pasta type for your particular recipe?
There are plenty of shapes to choose from. Here's our guide to choosing the best pasta for pasta salad recipes from Greek to Italian.
Why Pasta Shape Matters
More folds, ridges, spirals, and curves mean more surface area for dressing to stick to in pasta salad recipes. The more complicated the shape, the more likely it is to hold all of that lovely vinaigrette in its tender embrace.
Pasta shape also affects other aspects of the meal, such as the texture of each bite. You'll get a different mouth feel from Fusilli than from spaghetti.
The shape of your pasta pieces also influences how ingredients distribute throughout the salad. Small, short shapes are the best pasta type for pasta salad recipes because they're more stable on the fork. Spaghetti is difficult to eat with decorum at a stand-up event. And it won't hold the cherry tomatoes in this Italian Pasta Salad Recipe.
Choosing the Best Pasta for Pasta Salad
There are plenty of pasta shapes to choose from when creating a pasta salad. Let's group them together by their shape.
Spirals
Spiral shapes are excellent for even flavor distribution throughout the whole noodle. The battle comes down to Fusilli vs. Rotini. Fusilli's looser spiral makes it good for capturing heavier, creamier, sauces while Rotini has a tighter shape that makes it good for oil-based vinaigrette dressings. These shapes are good all-rounders, at home with most pasta salad recipes including this Pasta Salad Caprese.
Bowties
Farfalle, otherwise known as bowtie pasta, has a flat shape and pinched center with multiple sauce-holding ridges and folds. This is a good pasta for chunky, veggie-based salads like this Cold Pasta Salad With Vinaigrette.
Tube pastas
Hollow shapes like tubes allow dressing to reach all the way inside the shape rather than just the outside. This makes them good for both creamy and oil-based dressings, but their sturdy structure makes them extra useful for salads with heavy ingredients. Elbow pasta falls into this category.
Some pasta, like Rigatoni, comes with ridges on the outside to add even more surface grip. Penne is often smooth on the outside, but is great for presentation because of its diagonal cut, which lends extra visual flair to a salad. Take a look at this Penne Pasta Salad to see why.
Other pasta shapes
If you're looking for small pasta shapes, nothing beats orzo. This rice-shaped pasta's short size makes it perfect for blending in with other salad ingredients.
Shell pasta is the best pasta type for holding not only vinaigrette but also some of the other salad ingredients. It'll handle all the goodies in our Creamy Bacon Pasta Salad.
You can also check out Gemelli, for its interesting double-helix shape. This is great for Mediterranean dishes like our Greek Pasta Salad with Cucumber Yogurt Dressing.
Cooking Tips for Perfect Pasta Salad
Don't just rely on the best pasta type to supercharge your salad. Cooking technique has a lot to do with it too.
When cooking your pasta, make sure to salt the water well (we aim for water that tastes like mild seawater). This seasons the pasta from the inside out and avoids blandness in your pasta salad.
The golden role for pasta salad recipes is not to overcook your pasta. Mushy shapes won't stand up to the rest of the ingredients.
Avoid this by cooking it just past al dente (just enough for a firm bite). Test your pasta during the final minutes of cooking to ensure you don't go past the sweet spot.
When it's done drain it straight away and rinse it with cold water. This stops it cooking and removes excess starch so that it won't stick together. This also helps it cool to a salad-worthy temperature so that you can mix it with your ingredients immediately, as you might do for our Supreme Cold Pasta Salad.
With so many pasta types and pasta salad recipes to choose from, there's no end to the combinations you can use. You'll know you've hit a winner when there's not a noodle or a broccoli floret at the bottom of the bowl.
More Pasta Salad Recipes
Try these pasta salad recipes for more inspiration.
