Fideo substitutes

The best substitute by a wide margin, because it is the same thing: durum wheat pasta of the same thinness, just sold long. Hold a bundle in your fist and snap it two or three times over a plate.

Best for

sopa de fideo, fideo seco, Spanish rice with pasta, arroz con fideo

Cooks in the same time, toasts the same way, and tastes the same, because it is the same dough at the same gauge. The only visible difference is neatness: snapped pasta gives you uneven splinters where boxed fideo is cut evenly, so a few pieces will be longer and a few will be dust. Sift out the powder if you want a clear broth, since it clouds the soup. Angel hair is the closest gauge; thin spaghetti is slightly thicker and needs an extra minute of simmering.

Italian vermicelli is simply a thin wheat spaghetti, and in Spanish and Latin American shops the words fideo and vermicelli are often used for the same product. Confirm the packet says wheat or semolina.

Best for

sopa de fideo, fideo seco, brothy soups, rice dishes

As close as it gets short of buying fideo itself, and often the same product under a different label. If the coils are pressed into nests, drop them in the hot oil whole and break them up with a spoon as they toast; they separate on their own once they colour. Watch the heat, because thin coils brown from the outside in and can go from golden to bitter while the middle is still pale.

Rice-shaped semolina pasta. Not the right shape at all, but it takes to toasting beautifully and is stocked everywhere.

Best for

sopa de fideo when nothing thin is available, brothy soups, rice-style side dishes

Toast it in oil exactly as you would fideo and it browns evenly and smells right, so the flavour lands. The eating is different: orzo is dense and chewy and stays as individual grains, so the soup goes from a bowl of soft short noodles to something closer to a rice soup. It also sheds more starch, so a broth that should be loose will thicken noticeably; add a good splash more stock. Simmer 8 to 10 minutes rather than 5 to 7.

Very short tubes, or acini de pepe, alphabet pasta, or small stars. All fine in a brothy fideo soup and all in the cupboard.

Best for

sopa de fideo for children, brothy versions, when only short shapes are available

These toast reasonably well, though a hollow tube browns less evenly than a thin strand and you get patchy colour rather than uniform gold, so the roasted flavour is weaker. The bite is the bigger change: tubes and beads are chunky and distinct where fideo is soft and slippery, so the soup eats more like a minestrone than like sopa de fideo. Good; not the same dish.

Fine or medium egg noodles, snapped up. A workable option when nothing else is in the house.

Best for

brothy soups, quick weeknight versions

Egg noodles brown fast and unevenly in oil, and the egg in the dough makes them richer and softer than fideo, so the soup tastes rounder and a little heavier and the broth turns cloudier. They also overcook quickly, sometimes in three minutes, so add them at the very end. Toast them over lower heat than you would fideo, because the egg scorches before the starch has toasted.

The mistake worth naming, because the words look identical. Rice vermicelli is the thin white noodle used in Southeast Asian cooking, and it is not related to fideo despite the shared word.

Best for

nothing in this dish

Rice noodles do not toast; they puff, scorch, and turn brittle in hot oil rather than developing the nutty brown flavour the whole recipe depends on. In broth they then soften almost instantly and break into short fragments, clouding the soup and leaving no chew. If you have nothing but rice vermicelli, cook it separately according to its packet, ladle the soup over it, and accept that you are making a rice noodle soup rather than sopa de fideo.