Restaurants Pasta is one of a chef's most versatile ingredients. Updating the pasta shapes on your menu dramatically improve recipes as well as increases sales. Zerega is your best source for the largest variety of pasta sizes and shapes in the industry.

Zerega Foodservice Facts:

•From quick serve to casual dining, upscale white tablecloth restaurants to exclusive caterers- all use Zerega pasta
• Every Zerega pasta is designed to withstand the unusual rigors of food service preparation
•Whether it's a steam-table application or cooked-to-order, all Zerega products offer the consistent taste, texture and appearance you need to maintain customer satisfaction in your operation
• We sell our products through a number of channels: direct, through street distributors, label groups and customized distribution systems
• We provide an important link between operations that are unable to cook pasta on-site and processors who can provide frozen, IQF pasta or fully-prepared dishes.

Why Do So Many Restaurant Operators Come to Zerega?

• Standard retail pasta fails the al dente test in high power foodservice operations. All Zerega foodservice pasta is designed to hold up under these circumstances
• We offer a wide variety of specialty shapes like farfalle, orecchiette and tri color pastas, in addition to specially made popular shapes like spaghetti, fettuccine and penne
• Zerega can use its pastamaking expertise to create a custom pasta signature item for your regular or promotional menu

How Can You Purchase Our Pasta?

Zerega sells directly through many national food service distributors, independent regional distributors and through customized and private label distribution networks across the country. From its plants in New Jersey and Missouri, Zerega ships its pasta to every region of the country on a weekly basis.

Here is a Quick Look at our Special Pastas for Foodservice Operations:

• Long Pasta
• Classic Short Cut Pasta
• Egg Noodles
• Tri Color and Flavored Pasta
• Specialty Pasta
• Custom Pasta

Try This Test:

Use a new pasta shape in your favorite pasta recipe. Discover how this simple switch adds value to the dish by increasing your customer's enjoyment of it. For example...

Tricks of the Trade

We've been making pasta for over 150 years and have picked up pasta tips from some of America's top chefs. Here are a few of our favorites...

• Experiment with new flavors in your favorite pasta recipes. Some examples: Instead of Cheddar, try Gruyere or Fontina in your Macaroni and Cheese. Rather than basil, try fresh cilantro or arugula in your pesto sauce.

• When cooking pasta for baked preparations, undercook it by two minutes. Your pasta will finish cooking to al dente perfection in the baking dish.

• If boiling pasta to reheat later, undercook it slightly. Toss drained pasta with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and refrigerate (up to 3 to 4 days) in a sealed container. To reheat, toss pasta into rapidly boiling water for one minute, drain, sauce and serve.

• Many chefs reserve a portion of pasta cooking water for a convenient way to thin or moisten accompanying sauces.

• Never rinse pasta under running water unless preparing a salad or stuffed pasta dish. Rinsing removed surface starch which helps sauce cling to pasta.

• Serve freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese at the table (cheese starts to lose its flavor within one half hour of grating). Consider adding individual cheese graters to each table, and let customers help themselves.

Some Favorite Zerega Recipes:

Uptown Macaroni and Cheese
Radiatore with Rustic Sausage and Vegetable Sauce
Fusilli with Sun Dried Tomatoes and Artichokes
Lemon Baked Penne with Shrimp, Gruyere and Dill
Rotolini Al'Amatriana
Cavatappi with Tomato Vodka Sauce and Shrimp
Linguine with Cilantro Pesto

Click here for more Pasta Cooking and Handling Tips

Contact us for more information on Zerega food service pastas.