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Spaghetti alla chitarra

Pasta shape ✔ Checked: 10.2026 · sources: 3 Updated:

Also known as: maccheroni alla chitarra, chitarra pasta

Long egg pasta from Abruzzo with a square cross-section, cut on the chitarra, a wooden frame strung with steel wires.

Spaghetti alla chitarra, also called maccheroni alla chitarra, is a long pasta from Abruzzo with a square cross-section. The Abruzzo tourism website lists it among Italy's traditional agri-food products (PAT).

It is named after the tool: a wooden frame with steel wires stretched across it, set 2–3 mm apart for maccheroni and 4–6 mm apart for fettuccine. A sheet of dough, not too thin, is laid on the wires and pressed through with a rolling pin.

The home dough is flour and eggs, one egg per 100 g of flour, kneaded for 35–40 minutes. Under Italian law (DPR 187/2001, art. 8), egg pasta is made from semolina and at least four whole hen's eggs, no less than 200 g of egg per kilogram of semolina. Dry versions exist too: De Cecco's Maccheroni alla Chitarra n° 13 cooks in 10 minutes (al dente in 8).

It is typically eaten with lamb ragù. In some parts of Abruzzo the traditional sauce is tomato sauce with veal meatballs about a centimetre across (pallottelle); the tourism website also names three-meat sauce, tomato and basil, mushrooms and truffles, and seafood.

Facts

Raw materialFlour and eggs, one egg per 100 g of flour (home recipe) 1
RegionAbruzzo 1
DurationDe Cecco dry n° 13: 10 min, al dente 8 min 2
Main useLamb ragù, tomato sauce with small meatballs 12

What it includes

Results: 72 of 72

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How it connects to Pasta

Spaghetti alla chitarra → kind of → Dry durum wheat pasta → kind of → 🍝 Pasta

Frequently asked questions

Why is it called guitar pasta?

It is cut on the chitarra, a wooden frame strung with steel wires. The sheet of dough is pressed through the wires with a rolling pin.

What is it made of?

At home, flour and eggs, one egg per 100 g of flour. Under DPR 187/2001, egg pasta made from semolina contains at least four eggs (200 g) per kilogram of semolina.

How long do you cook spaghetti alla chitarra?

De Cecco gives 10 minutes for its dry Maccheroni alla Chitarra n° 13, al dente in 8; follow the pack.

What to read next

  • 🥚 Chicken egg — The egg of the domestic hen: in pasta it gives yellow colour, an elastic dough and protein, and in the EU it must be highlighted on labels as an allergen.
  • 🍝 Cacio e pepe — A Roman pasta dish dressed with grated Pecorino Romano, black pepper and starchy cooking water, which together form a creamy sauce.
  • Troccoli — Fresh pasta from the province of Foggia, Apulia: strands like thick, rough spaghetti, cut from a sheet of semolina dough with a rolling pin, the troccolo.
  • Gragnano in Corsa Formato Lungo — Long dry pasta by Gragnano in Corsa from durum wheat semolina: pappardelle and spaghetti alla chitarra.
  • Spaghetti — Long, thin dry pasta with a round cross-section, made from durum wheat semolina.

Similar

Pappardelle · Fettuccine · Tagliatelle · Lasagne sheets · Maltagliati · Tagliolini

Sources

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