BARILLA ELBOW PASTA PLUS

This protein pasta provides classic pasta taste and texture, plus a good source of plant based protein for your whole family. Plus, from a budget perspective, this pasta is only 70 cents more than Barilla’s wheat-based pasta (that’s a fifth of the price of a box of Cappello’s).Barilla Protein+ Elbows pasta is made simply with delicious golden wheat and plant protein from lentils, chickpeas, and peas. It’s best fresh, as most things are, but if needed, it can last about three days in the fridge with or without sauce on it. The spaghetti does tend to break apart easily if overhandled or mixed too vigorously with pesto, but I would say that’s probably true for all pastas. I’ve tried both the penne and spaghetti - with everything from my very Italian father’s red sauce to homemade clam sauce - and every single time, it has properly absorbed the sauce. Because it’s made from a magical combination of rice and corn flours, it has almost the exact same texture and taste as wheat-based pasta, so much so that my boyfriend, a gluten eater and pasta lover, once said he couldn’t even tell the difference. Barilla is by far the superior gluten-free pasta. I’ve seen Cappello’s - which costs $11 for nine ounces - ranked as the best gluten-free pasta on websites and in magazines, and while everyone is entitled to their own opinion, they’re all wrong. They meet most, if not all, of my criteria listed above, and they’re so tasty you can hardly tell the difference. With all that said (and eaten), I feel confident that these eight are the best gluten-free pastas, from spaghetti to gnocchi. And while that’s a reality I’ve grown to accept, some things are so much pricier (think: $11 for a nine ounce box of spaghetti) that it’s simply not worth it to me, so I often seek out reasonably priced options. (Before I found actually good alternatives, I’d painstakingly weigh out my pasta to ensure I wouldn’t waste any food because I couldn’t save it for the next day.) Lastly, gluten-free stuff is generally expensive. Some literally crumble the next day in the fridge, while others harden to the point of inedibility. And yet another issue: Most gluten-free pastas need to be eaten fresh. I’ve also found that some gluten-free pastas puzzlingly don’t absorb sauce - you have to drown the pasta in sauce to pick up any flavor. To counteract the texture problems, some brands make their pasta thicker, which gives the noodles a chewy texture (also not great). Not all gluten-free pastas taste like pasta - the high-protein ones absolutely do not - and many have a mushy or grainy texture, negating the joy of eating pasta. I judge pasta on five factors: taste, texture, sauce absorption, longevity in the fridge, and price. When I eat gluten-free pasta, I’m looking for the closest match to wheat-based pasta possible, not a “healthy” approximation of the real thing. Since going gluten-free, I’ve tried dozens of both types, though I far prefer the former. Gluten-free pasta has come a long way from the mushy, tasteless noodles that I tried when I went gluten-free a few years ago, and many mainstream brands actually provide truly great gluten-free alternatives.įor the uninitiated, there are two kinds of gluten-free pastas: ones made from things like corn and rice flours that closely resemble wheat-based pasta, and the ones marketed as healthy alternatives to wheat-based pasta and made from things like chickpeas and red lentils.

The first thing people ask me when I say I’m gluten-intolerant is, “How do you live without pasta?” And, well, honestly? I’m doing just fine. Photo-Illustration: The Strategist Photos: Retailers

Barilla elbow pasta