The pasta that holds sauce best is rigatoni, Penne and other pastas that are shaped like tubes.
Tube shaped pastas such as rigatoni, Penne and other tube shaped pastas are great for holding onto sauces due to their hollow centers and ridges, which trap and carry sauces, especially creamy or chunky sauces.
Other good pasta shapes that hold sauce best are shell pasta, which can scoop up the pasta sauce and even rotini pasta, fusilli pasta and spiraled pasta which can trap the pasta sauce in the twists of the pasta shapes.
Flat long noodles are good for thin sauces and thicker noodles are also best for thicker sauces.
Cascatelli is a pasta that is also made to hold sauce.
Cascatelli is a short pasta shape which has a flat strip and a pair of ruffles that are parallel to each other, and each of which stick out at a 90 degree angle from the strip.
The ruffles of cascatelli pasta give the Cascatelli pasta shape texture and create a sauce trough.
The pasta that holds meat sauce the best are pastas that are wide such as wide ribbon pasta such as pappardelle pasta, which goes well with rich and meaty sauces and thinner flat noodles, such as fettuccine or linguine pastas are best when paired with simple cream sauces such as Alfredo sauce or delicate proteins such as seafood.