Best for pasta salads
This is where gluten-free pastas are particularly tricky. Once they’re cold, many vegetable- and legume-based pastas get firm and rubbery. Enter rice-based pasta. Jovial’s brown rice pasta (I recommend the bow ties) and Tinkyada’s macaroni elbows are excellent choices. Once cooked, cooled, and tossed in olive oil, the texture remains gloriously pasta-like.
Jovial Brown Rice Farfalle
Tinkyada Brown Rice Pasta (Pack of 12)
Best for pasta e fagioli
Zenb’s macaroni elbows hold up well in broth (cook them separately in water before adding to your soup) with the mouthfeel of your favorite comfort-soup noodle. If you want to add fiber, try a red lentil pasta, like Public Goods’ fusilli and those from Tolerant. Both maintain their sturdiness after swimming in liquid for a while and have the added bonus of a high-protein legume boost.
Public Goods Red Lentil Pasta
Tolerant Red Lentil Pasta
Best for baked pasta
Here’s where texture counts, and this is where many gluten-free pastas fall short. Typically, regular pasta is undercooked before baking. But it can be difficult to get the timing just right when using gluten-free or grain-free pasta, and baked pasta dishes made without gluten frequently turn out disappointingly mushy or gummy. But Zenb’s penne pasta makes for a hearty bake. Even after baking for a while or quickly nuking it in the microwave the next day, the structure of the noodles holds firm. Try it in BAs Best Baked Ziti.
Zenb Yellow Pea Penne (Pack of 3)
Yes, you can still enjoy lasagna even if you follow a gluten-free diet. I love Cappello’s almond flour sheets, which have a nice melt-in-your-mouth quality reminiscent of fresh wheat pasta. The almond flavor plays subtly in the background, but it’s not distracting. Jovial’s organic brown rice lasagna noodles (no precooking necessary) are another favorite, with a chewy bite and crispy edges my family and I fight over.
Cappellos Almond Flour Pasta (Pack of 4)
Jovial Brown Rice Lasagna Sheets
