The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 6 letter word NOODLE
I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
N
O
O
D
L
E
More clues leading to the result NOODLE
- Simple person’s word of refusal upset the Spanish party
- Improvise a bit of food
- Stupid that hotel do only flipping sandwiches!
- Casually play with pasta
- Head, / one ending in the soup
- Old duffer, Noel, awful without make-up
- Penned by Blackmore, L. Doone – revolting, silly person
- Fool head? One may be in the soup
- Cook one old piece of pasta
- Stupid person as head
Buddy explains!

The straight part
We know that "piece of pasta" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case piece of pasta = noodle.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does NOODLE mean?
NOODLE noun- (usually in the plural) a string or strip of pasta
- A person with poor judgement; a fool
- The brain, the head
- A pool noodle
- To think or ponder.
- To fiddle, play with, or mess around.
- To improvise music.
- To fish (usually for very large catfish) without any equipment other than the fisherman's own body
- To fossick, especially for opals.