8 different types of pastas you didn’t know existed

The last time we checked our favourite grocery store, the shelves were stocked with a range of Italian foods that brought a whole new dimension to pastas. Why not make a mushroom rotelle pasta or bake a cheesy mince pasta using ziti or a salad using rotini? The next time you're prepping for an Italian feast, skip the spaghetti or penne or fusilli and try some of these lesser cooked pastas. Like any other pasta, these too can be served in salads, sauce-based dishes, bakes and even soups. Besides, their unusual shapes also make for great conversation starters. Feel like Gigli anyone? Click through for some eight kinds of pastas you should experiment with next. (Source: Thinkstock Images; Text: Team Express Foodie)

Gemelli: Named after the Italian word for 'twins', Gemelli is served in cream-based, meat-based or tomato sauce based dishes. (Source: Food Group/Flickr; Text: Team Express Foodie)

Gigli: The pasta with the cutest name takes its name and shape after a variety of lily. It tastes great with all kinds of sauces, including tomato-based, meaty or cheesy ones, and is also added to baked dishes. (Source: Eltpics/Flickr; Text: Team Express Foodie)

Pipe Rigate: The pasta looks like a curved pipe socket, but is hollow at one end and flat on the other, almost like a snail shell even. Again, it is great for holding sauces and is used a lot in meat, cream and oil-based pastas. (Source: Thinkstock; ; Text: Team Express Foodie)

Rotelle: This wheel-shaped pasta is such a hit with kids and manages to retain most of the sauces because of its shape. Again, this is great with all kinds of sauces, and seen pictured is a mushroom and meat-based sauce. (Source: Jessica and Lon Binder/Fickr; Text: Team Express Foodie)

Rotini: This pasta is almost a clone of fusilli with its cockscrew shape. The spirals are great to hold bits of cheese, mince and sauce. The rotini is a favourite in salads but is also popular in sauce-based or dry pastas. (Source: Sarah R/Flickr; Text: Team Express Foodie)

Tripolini: A distant cousin of the farfalle pasta, tripolini’s bow shape is again a hit with the kids and is also added to soups sometimes. (Source: Thinkstock Images; Text: Team Express Foodie)

Trofie: The twisted pasta was first made in Liguria. Since the region is close to the sea, trofie is used a lot in seafood pastas, but also works in salads and drier cheese-based pastas. (Source:Veethakur/Flickr; Text: Team Express Foodie)

Ziti: A long tube-shaped pasta, this retains a lot of cheese and meat sauces like penne and is preferred in sauce-based pastas. But it is also tossed into salads and in layered, baked pastas. (Source: Top Ipri/Flickr; Text: Team Express Foodie)