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Pasta is a type of food made from the flour of certain grains mixed with water and/or eggs, which is then kneaded and formed into various shapes, and boiled prior to consumption. Pasta can be found in numerous different forms; both fresh and dried and in many different shapes and varieties, probably the most famous of which is spaghetti. Macaroni is a term encompassing various pasta shapes, but is most commonly used to refer to small thin pasta tubes.

Pasta can also denote dishes in which pasta products are the primary ingredient, served with sauce or seasonings. The word comes from Italian pasta which shares its origins with "paste", meaning "dough", "pasta", or "pastry" as in "small cake". As recently as 1918 the English word "paste" was used instead of or alongside the Italian pasta.

Dried Italian-style pasta is made from durum wheat semolina, which gives it a light yellow colour and a slightly chewy texture when properly prepared. It is traditionally cooked al dente (Italian: "with [a slight] bite"). Italian dried pastas are also rolled between copper rollers.

Certain American pastas are produced from a mixture of farina and semolina. Such pastas often have a different texture and flavor and are typically used in casseroles or other dishes. Some pasta varieties, such as Pizzoccheri, are made from buckwheat flour. Gnocchi are often listed among pasta dishes, although they are quite different in ingredients (mainly milled potatoes) and mode of preparation.

Pasta is made either by extrusion, where the ingredients are forced through holes in a plate known as a die, or by lamination, in which dough is kneaded, folded, rolled to thickness, then cut by slitters. Fresh pasta cooks quickly, but spoils relatively quickly due to its high water content. Dry pasta generally contains about 12.5% moisture, which makes it shelf stable for about three years.

Packed refrigerated or frozen pasta can be found with relative ease in most pasta counsuming countries. More varieties tend to be available where expatriate Italian communities have taken root. Italian companies such as Arienti & Cattaneo Ima, Ostoni, and Zamboni manufacture machines for producing "fresh" packed pasta, which has a shelf life of around 7 weeks.

Though the Chinese were eating noodles as long ago as 2000 BCE, the familiar legend of Marco Polo importing pasta from China is just thata legend, whose origins lie not in Polo's Travels, but in the newsletter of the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association

The works of the 2nd century CE Greek physician Galen mention itrion, homogenous compounds made up of flour and water. The Jerusalem Talmud records that itrium, a kind of boiled dough, was common in Palestine from the 3rd to 5th centuries CE. A dictionary compiled by the 9th century Syrian physician and lexicographer Isho bar Ali defines itriyya as stringlike pasta shapes made of semolina and dried before cooking, a recognizable ancestor of modern-day dried pasta.

One form of itrion with a long history is laganum (plural lagana), which in Latin refers to a thin sheet of dough.In the 1st century BCE work of Horace, lagana were fine sheets of dough which were fried and were an everyday food. Writing in the 2nd century CE Athenaeus of Naucratis provides a recipe for lagana which he attributes to the 1st century Chrysippus of Tyana: very fine sheets of a dough made of wheat flour and the juice of crushed lettuce, then flavored with spices and deep-fried in oil.