The gluten-free pasta landscape has transformed. What was once a niche product tucked away in health food stores now fills mainstream grocery aisles, driven by growing awareness of gluten intolerance and celiac disease. Twenty boxes of gluten-free pasta later, I've found the ones worth buying — and the ones to skip. Pamela Vachon/CNETThe variety is impressive. Some brands emphasize their gluten-free certification, while others lead with their ingredients: chickpeas, lentils, peas, brown rice, corn, quinoa and cassava, among others. I tested pastas across this entire spectrum to find the most spot-on wheatless noodles to boil in 2025.: Want the Perfect Pasta? Follow These Tips From an Italian ChefIn all, I tasted 21 different gluten-free pastas from online vendors and grocery store shelves. Here are the brands I loved and liked, as well as the ones I'll pass on next time. If your goal is a gluten-free pasta that tastes like the real thing, Rummo is the clear winner. Pamel Vachon/CNETThe best gluten-free pastas For my palate, Rummo was truly indistinguishable from conventional pasta. Made with a combination of corn and brown rice with a proprietary, steam-based production method, the pasta is mild and familiar in flavor, with a toothsome bite that could stand up even to a meaty sauce. As a nice touch — though I didn't need this detail to break a tie, as the brand was the runaway winner — Rummo comes in modest packaging with a resealable bag. Get it now See at Target See at Amazon It was the battle of Ronzoni versus Barilla. Having initially tasted both on different days, I had a second-round cookoff to determine which was actually best. Both were very good and near the top of the ranking regardless of being conventional brands. I even called in a second opinion to confirm my initial ranking. Ronzoni is made from a combination of four grains: white rice, brown rice, corn, and quinoa. It has a slightly longer cooking time than Barilla, but even with that extra minute, the deciding factor was texture, and Ronzoni inspires more confidence with its sturdiness. Get it now $14 at Amazon See at Ronzoni Among the chickpea pastas I tried, Chickapea stood out for having a texture closest to regular pasta, and its chickpea flavor is evened out by including yellow peas. Chickpea-based gluten-free pastas are almost their own market, with several brands touting them as a healthier choice due to higher fiber and protein. In an overall ranking, chickpea pastas suffer a bit; it's hard to ignore the very granular texture of chickpea pastas compared to those that use other grains and legumes. I didn't find any off-putting, just less successful as a gluten-free pasta alternative. Get it now See at Chickapea $4 at Amazon $24 at Walmart Among the single-ingredient options, I also really liked this brown rice-only option from Tinkyada. The packaging inspires pasta joy with its attestations of "good texture and "not mushy." Indeed, it was not mushy like others. Some suggest it can stand up to overcooking — good news for distracted or timer-averse cooks. It was starchier, and the flavor had a slight, pleasant, sourdough tang. Get it now $32 at Amazon $4 at Walmart Just out of the top spot, I could have bought penne to make it more of a fair fight, but who can resist something called Loopdy-Loos? Made from corn, brown rice, chickpeas and yellow peas, the noodles are also fortified with other ingredients. Between the resulting flavor and the modest diameter of the noodles, I was very much reminded — and I mean this in the best way — of the elbows that come in Kraft mac and cheese. Get it now $20 at Goodles $4 at Target $4 at Amazon Jovial's gluten-free products were good overall, and its cassava-based pasta is an outlier among gluten-free pastas. If you're avoiding grains or legumes (cassava is a root), this is supposed to be a paleo-friendly alternative. Its flavor is slightly sweet, and the texture is very soft compared to what gluten-free pasta can do. The color is also beyond gray. That being said, it was still pleasant to eat, and I appreciated its iconoclastic vibe. Get it now $5 at Jovial Foods $8 at Amazon Leave it to Joe's to get cute with the pasta shapes, which they describe as "somewhere between elbows and penne." There are fewer options in the lentil pasta field, but this was the best, with a neutral but lentil-like flavor and relatively smooth texture. It also cooks in an impressive 5 minutes, and for Trader Joe's prices, it's at least worth the gluten-free gamble. Get it now $9 at Amazon Bionaturae Gluten-Free: Rice and corn pastas were among my favorites, but rice and lentil-based Bionaturae was very close to the top of the pack, neck and neck with Rummo. Both were nearly indistinguishable from regular pasta.Jovial Brown RiceThis is an excellent brown rice option for anyone excited about single-ingredient pastas. Given the recommended cooking time, I thought it was a little firm, but nothing another 30 seconds wouldn't fix it. Brown rice also tends to produce more greyish pastas, which may only be a factor with pasta salads or light-colored sauces.Barilla Gluten-Free: If Barilla is the only gluten-free option available in your grocery store, you're in luck. This is a perfect option. I appreciated its very light color and extra-tight coil in the rotini shape.Davilla Senza Glutine: Another excellent corn and rice option, where available. Italian cooks are very serious about al dente, and this one really retained a bite after 9 minutes of boiling.Al Dente Chickpea + Turmeric: This style of pasta functions more like an egg noodle in texture and shape, but I enjoyed the inclusion of turmeric, which gives it an intensely savory, almost chicken flavor. This would be an excellent gluten-free option for inclusion in soup.Banza Chickpea: If you love chickpeas, Banza is widely available and makes a good option that is pleasantly starchy, not too grainy, and more neutral in flavor than many of the chickpea options. There were a few hits but I found that pasta made from legumes such as chickpeas and lentils were generally a bit mushier than their rice- and corn-based counterparts. BarillaNone of these are in any way off-putting or to be avoided. They simply didn't stand out against other, more successful options. Whole Foods 365 ChickpeaBarilla ChickpeaExplore Organic ChickpeaAncient HarvestWhole Foods 365 Gluten-FreeTrader Joe's Brown Rice & QuinoaBarilla Red LentilExplore Organic Green Lentil I cooked half a cup of each pasta according to its package instructions. Pamel Vachon/CNETAs a gluten-eater, I had no preconceived notions about what I may or may not like here, so the need to conduct a blind test seemed unnecessary. I looked for shortcut rotini or similar, or penne if something resembling spirals wasn't available.I cooked half a cup of each pasta according to its package instructions, in a measured amount of water with a measured amount of salt. When given a range of minutes, I always went with the lesser value for (presumably) the most al dente outcome. Where this resulted in an undercooked texture, I counted that as a minor fault, given that typical cooks need to rely on package instructions. Trader Joe's dense red lentil was one of the better legume-based pastas I tried. Pamel Vachon/CNETI was cooking with a generous amount of water and at a rolling boil at all times, so if it were undercooked for me, it would be really undercooked for anyone shortcutting this procedure. I tested like with like as much as possible: All of the chickpea pastas were cooked and tasted in succession, for example.I tasted everything while it was freshly cooked, and again after it cooled, scoring it for flavor and, perhaps more importantly, texture. Any flavor appreciably different from conventional pasta will likely be masked by sauce or dressing. Sauce will soften the pasta further, but can't correct for graininess, so I was looking for a genuinely al dente bite that would be hard to distinguish from regular pasta. I took other factors, such as how quickly it cooked or packaging, into consideration only as a tie breaker.
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