Curated lists

Noodles of the world

The 24 best-known noodle dishes from around the world, each with a short background and where it comes from.

01
Spaghetti
Italy
Spaghetti is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta. It serves as a staple food of Italian cuisine and is made of milled wheat and water (sometimes enriched with vitamins and minerals), with the standard Italian version using durum-wheat semolina.
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02
Lasagna
Italy
Lasagna, also known by the plural form lasagne, is a type of pasta made in wide, flat sheets.
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03
Ramen
Japan
Ramen is a Japanese-Chinese fusion noodle dish. It includes Chinese-style alkaline wheat noodles (中華麺, chūkamen) served in several flavors of hot broth.
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04
Macaroni
Italy
Macaroni, known in Italian as maccheroni, is a pasta shaped like narrow tubes. Made with durum wheat, macaroni is commonly cut in short lengths; curved macaroni may be referred to as "elbow macaroni".
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05
Carbonara
Italy United States
Carbonara is a pasta dish made with cured pork, hard cheese, eggs, salt, and black pepper. It is typical of the Lazio region of Italy. The dish took its modern form and name in the middle of the 20th century.
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06
Pho
Vietnam
Pho (Vietnamese: phở [fɤ˧˩˧] ) is a Vietnamese soup dish consisting of broth, rice noodles (bánh phở), herbs, and meat – usually beef (phở bò), and sometimes chicken (phở gà).
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07
Ravioli
France Italy
Ravioli are a type of stuffed pasta comprising a filling enveloped in thin pasta dough. Usually served in broth or with a sauce, they originated as a traditional food in Italian cuisine.
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08
Gnocchi
France Italy
Gnocchi are a varied family of pasta-like dumplings in Italian cuisine. They are made of small rolls of dough, such as those composed of a simple combination of wheat flour, potato, egg, and salt.
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09
Udon
Japan
Udon (うどん or 饂飩) is a thick noodle made from wheat flour, used in Japanese cuisine. There are a variety of ways it is prepared and served. Its simplest form is in a soup as kake udon with a mild broth called kakejiru made from dashi, soy sauce, and mirin.
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10
Instant noodles
Japan
Instant noodles, or instant ramen, is a type of food consisting of noodles sold in a precooked and dried block with flavoring powder and/or seasoning oil.
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11
Tortellini
Italy
Tortellini is a type of stuffed pasta typical of the Italian cities of Bologna and Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region.
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12
Pad thai
Thailand
Pad thai is a stir-fried rice noodle dish commonly served as a street food in Thailand as part of Thai cuisine. It is typically made with rice noodles, shrimp, peanuts, green onions, scrambled egg, sugar and bean sprouts. The ingredients are fried in a wok.
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13
Minestrone
Italy
Minestrone or minestrone di verdure is a thick vegetable soup of Italian origin. It typically includes onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, courgettes, often legumes, such as beans, chickpeas or fava beans, and sometimes pasta or rice, and is…
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14
Fettuccine
Italy
Fettuccine is a type of pasta popular in Roman cuisine. It is descended from the extremely thin capelli d'angelo of the Renaissance, but is a flat, thick pasta traditionally made with egg and flour (usually one egg for every 100 grams or 3.5 ounces of flour).
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15
Tagliatelle
Italy
Tagliatelle are a traditional type of pasta from the Italian regions of Emilia-Romagna and Marche. Individual pieces of tagliatelle are long, flat ribbons that are similar in shape to fettuccine and are traditionally about 6 mm (1⁄4 in) wide.
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16
Chow mein
People's Republic of China
Chow mein is a dish of Chinese stir-fried noodles with vegetables and sometimes meat or tofu.
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17
Fusilli
Italy
Fusilli are a variety of pasta from southern Italy, with a helical (corkscrew) or helicoidal shape, also known as rotini in the United States and Canada.
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18
Spätzle
Germany
Spätzle, Spätzla Knöpfle or Spatzen, also called nokedli, are a type of egg pasta typically served as a side for meat dishes with sauce.
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19
Laksa
Iran
Laksa is a spicy noodle dish popular in Southeast Asia. Laksa consists of various types of noodles, most commonly thick rice noodles, with toppings such as chicken, prawns or fish.
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20
Macaroni and cheese
United Kingdom
Macaroni and cheese (colloquially known as mac and cheese and known as macaroni cheese in the United Kingdom) is a pasta dish of macaroni covered in cheese sauce, most commonly cheddar sauce.
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21
Naengmyeon
North Korea South Korea
Naengmyeon (냉면, in South Korea) or raengmyŏn (랭면, in North Korea) is a noodle dish of North Korean origin which consists of long and thin handmade noodles made from the flour and starch of various ingredients, including most commonly buckwheat (메밀, memil) but…
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22
Farfalle
Italy
Farfalle are a type of pasta. The name is derived from the Italian word farfalle ('butterflies'). In the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, farfalle are known as strichetti (a local word for 'bow ties').
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23
Linguine
Italy
Linguine (lit. 'little tongues'), sometimes anglicized as linguini, is a type of pasta similar to fettuccine and trenette, distinguished by its elliptical rather than flat section.
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24
Spaghetti aglio e olio
Italy
Spaghetti aglio e olio is a pasta dish typical of the city of Naples, Italy. It is popular because it is simple to prepare and makes use of inexpensive, readily available ingredients that have long shelf lives in a pantry.
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