The 9 Finest Gluten-Free Pastas, From Spaghetti to Penne and Past

Gluten-free meals are used to getting a foul rap. Gluten-free pastas have lengthy been pegged as temperamental to cook dinner and liable to mealiness; gluten-free pizza crusts could possibly be too crackery, limp, or dense; gluten-free cookies may sub in for a weak doorstop or crumble on the contact from dryness. As a result of there have traditionally been poor facsimiles for wheat-based meals, something marketed as “gluten-free” can discover itself below fireplace.

However, as with the continued betterment of vegan meals, instances have modified — and in recent times, if the place to look, there are various formidable, 100-percent-zero-gluten merchandise available on the market, together with improbable, chef-approved gluten-free pastas that make wheat appear irrelevant. Gluten-free pastas have a tendency to make use of a mix of rice, corn, or legume flours, and generally have the next protein content material than their durum wheat counterparts, making them an more and more interesting alternative for a broader viewers than simply the gluten-sensitive. And in contrast to the grey previous days, when discovering a satisfactory field of gluten-free spaghetti or penne appeared the perfect we may do, in 2025, manufacturers are having far more enjoyable with wheat-free shapes (sure, there’s even stelline).

Along with being an Eater editor with a discerning palate, I’ve been gluten-intolerant for no less than a decade. I lastly stopped consuming gluten-containing meals round eight years in the past (it was laborious to interrupt up with wheat, okay?) and usually abide by a zero-gluten food plan to keep away from pointless ache. What was once a thorn in my aspect has truly turn out to be, in my eyes, a fantastic factor: I not want and even just like the style of wheat-based meals — the odor of flour tortillas is extraordinarily off-putting to me — and I experience discovering gluten-free merchandise which might be simply pretty much as good as, if not higher than, their wheat-based counterparts. For the previous few years, I’ve additionally co-curated the gluten-free eating information for Eater Los Angeles. Right here’s my information to the perfect gluten-free pasta you should buy proper now. The gluten-free pastas beneath have been examined and rated by form, texture, style, and general high quality.

What Makes a Good Gluten-Free Pasta

Gluten-free pastas are sometimes made with a mix of flours, together with brown or white rice flour, corn flour, legume flours, and extra. Many high quality gluten-free flour blends exist available on the market now for recent pasta makers, and much more manufacturers promote packaged pastas formulated with a mixture of wheat-free flours and starches.

Gianba Vinzoni, an Italian native, started to supply handmade gluten-free pastas within the former Pacific Palisades location of his restaurant Cinque Terre West (now working on the Colony in Venice) as a result of his daughter is gluten-intolerant. He contends that a fantastic gluten-free pasta comes all the way down to its binder. “Pasta is principally durum wheat flour and water — you make a dough along with your arms and it sticks collectively. However gluten-free flours have totally different textures and once you add water to them, they break,” Vinzoni says. “So that you want a binder like xanthan gum, which acts because the ‘gluten’ half, serving to the dough stretch like a shirt and never break.” Briefly, the rationale some gluten-free pastas battle to realize that traditional al dente noodle texture is as a result of they lack the stretchy, chewy high quality that gluten affords — however different substances can substitute or emulate that.

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So how do you cook dinner gluten-free pastas to make sure they don’t flip into mush? Vinzoni suggests cooking packaged gluten-free pasta in boiling water for no less than a minute and a half shorter than the instructed cook dinner time, and ending it in a sauce that reduces with the pasta for the final minute or two. When he’s not making recent gluten-free pasta, he’ll decide up Barilla penne or spaghetti, or order pastas by Le Veneziane, which is corn-flour-based.

What I’ve discovered, in my kitchen observe, is that I’ve to cook dinner gluten-free pastas for even much less time than that to succeed in the elusive al dente texture I need earlier than I end it with sauces, greens, or proteins. For many pastas on this listing, I scale back the instructed cooking time by half, generally even just a little extra, relying on the scale and kind of pasta; this additionally entails ensuring my water is actually at a rolling boil earlier than I begin the pasta’s cook dinner time. The cook dinner time cut-down permits me to empty the pasta at its al dente peak earlier than ending it with reserved pasta water and no matter sauce I’ve on deck. (If you happen to don’t consider me on the half-time issue, attempt it.)

The Finest Gluten-Free Pasta

Finest Total Lengthy Gluten-Free Pasta: Banza Gluten-Free Bucatini

Banza’s pasta — made with chickpea flour, pea starch, and tapioca (a starch derived from cassava root) — will get large factors for its protein content material (“20 grams of protein! 8 grams of fiber!” the field virtually screams from the grocery store shelf) and for the truth that it makes a bucatini, arguably the perfect lengthy pasta. It’s value noting that Banza is likely one of the trickier manufacturers to cook dinner correctly. I’ve discovered that I’ve to boil Banza’s bucatini for not more than 4 and half minutes for it to succeed in the al dente degree I like earlier than I end cooking the noodles in a sauce. That mentioned, to every their very own: Some folks would possibly like extra pliable noodles, so cook dinner to your desire.

The model additionally affords compelling pasta shapes like rotini, shells, cavatappi, gemelli, penne, and orzo, and its boxed macaroni and cheese rivals the classics. Strive the variability packs with assorted traditional shapes — all of that are fairly good.

Finest Gluten-Free Spaghetti: Bionaturae Gluten-Free Spaghetti

Typically, you simply want an enormous ol’ plate of spaghetti. However why not have one fortified with one thing high-protein, like lentil flour? Bionaturae blends brown rice flour, white rice flour, and yellow lentil flour to make one thing larger than the sum of its components. You’ll get an excellent bowl of spaghetti in the event you nail the cook dinner time it doesn’t matter what you costume your noodles in: It’s satisfying with buttery sauces, pink sauces, Bolognese sauces, rustic pestos, and extra (a carbonara can be a pleasant transfer for this explicit pasta). The model additionally has a linguine and different shorter shapes on provide with the identical lentil-infused flour mix, if spaghetti is simply too normcore.

Finest Total Brief Gluten-Free Noodles: Giadzy Gluten-Free Mezzi Rigatoni

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Giada De Laurentiis’s artisanal Italian meals, pastas, and pantry merchandise model, Giadzy, is what occurs once you take the aesthetics of Goop and merge it with the culinary star energy of a former Meals Community host. In Giadzy’s butter yellow and inexperienced containers (its wheat-based pastas get a pink design), you’ll discover a gluten-free pasta made primarily of corn flour (90 p.c) and rice flour (10 p.c). Arms down, the perfect a part of Giadzy’s pasta line is how rattling enjoyable the shapes are: Noodle selection appears to be how Giada is differentiating her merchandise, with gluten-free taccole corte (a ruffled form nearly like a mini lasagna noodle), stelline (the tiny stars that everybody form of loves), and ziti corti rigati among the many first releases from the model’s gluten-free choice.

Your best option from Giadzy for shorter, tubular noodles which have ridges for sauce to cling to is undoubtedly the mezzi rigatoni — which additionally occurs to be my favourite pasta form of all time. (What’s to not like? It’s a brief and cute rigatoni.) Honorable point out: the ziti corti rigati, which, whereas not as small because the mezzi rigatoni, is an efficient center floor between lengthy noodle and quick.

Finest Gluten-Free Penne: Rummo Gluten-Free Penne Rigate No. 66

You probably have had no luck discovering high quality gluten-free pastas to make use of at house, Rummo is right here to supply textural salvation. This is likely one of the most foolproof packaged pasta manufacturers of all time — and its gluten-free choice lives as much as its title. The noodles cook dinner simply (sure, I do suggest shortening the instructed cook dinner time, nonetheless) and sauces appear to like them. Rummo’s gluten-free pastas are all produced from a mix of brown rice flour, yellow corn, white corn, rice, and potato starch, amongst different vegetable-derived substances. The penne rigate is my platonic very best of penne rigate — even ridges to take in a silken sauce, a tunneled inside destined for a fork prong (or toddler’s finger). The gluten-free rigatoni, mezzi rigatoni, and fusilli are all stellar bets from this model, too.

Finest Gluten-Free Corkscrew Form: Kaizen Fusilli or Radiatori

Kaizen, a newish gluten-free pasta model, leans into the legume flour pasta pattern with its lupini-bean-flour pastas, that are texturally fortified with fava bean protein, tapioca starch, and xanthan gum. If you happen to’re questioning if these noodles are additionally supremely excessive in protein, the reply is sure. I recognize the model’s instructed cook dinner time of 4 to 5 minutes, too, which, for me, resulted in a fusilli that was pleasantly springy (I cooked for slightly below 5 minutes). The leftover pea pesto I made a number of nights prior blended properly into the pot of drained pasta, clinging eagerly to the fusilli’s spiral curves (very similar to the impact of utilizing fusilli corti bucati, an Eater editor favourite). The model’s shorter radiatori form can also be value a point out on this class, too.

Finest Gluten-Free Orzo: DeLallo Gluten-Free Orzo

Many gluten-free pasta strains embrace some type of orzo now, however DeLallo’s orzo continues to be the one I open my Google pockets for many. It has the identical stalwart qualities of the opposite pastas in DeLallo’s common line however is made with a mix of corn flour (70 p.c) and rice flour (30 p.c). A part of the attraction right here could be getting to make use of a DeLallo pasta, which looks like one of many nicer readily-available-in-most-supermarkets manufacturers round. But it surely additionally holds its personal on the cook dinner and takes effectively to each richer, velvety sauces in addition to less complicated recipes and barely there accoutrements.

Finest Gluten-Free Pastina: Senza Gluten-Free Stelline

5 or so years in the past, gluten-free stelline would have appeared like a farfetched fantasy. Now, most gluten-free-friendly manufacturers have some type of pasta to make the pastina girlies joyful, and stelline, the micro star form, is commonly the one they need. Made with simply rice flour, corn flour, and water, Senza’s gluten-free stelline is the workhorse of tiny pastas — one which cooks evenly in the event you boil it for the correct amount of time (pastina can boil nearer to its instructed cooking time, however take a look at it across the two-minute mark earlier than the cook dinner finishes). Stir these right into a golden rooster broth with a pat of butter and dusting of Parmesan cheese for a bowl of most consolation.

Finest Gluten-Free Pasta for Children: Le Veneziane Anellini

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In case your millennial coronary heart nonetheless beats strongly for SpaghettiOs, look no additional than Le Veneziane, a gluten-free pasta model that has made a perfect substitute by way of its corn-flour-based anellini. Now you may whip up a home-cooked pink sauce for the kiddos to pour over a pleasant bowl of miniature O-shaped pasta — sans questionable components or undercooked meat. This gluten-free anellini has been an enormous success in our home, and one thing that my toddler likes topped with a small snowfall of Parmesan cheese.

Finest Gluten-Free Natural Pasta: Rustichella Natural Gluten Free Pink Lentil Sedanini

Wish to eat a bowl of lentils with out slow-simmering a pot of lentils? Rustichella’s gluten-free and natural sedanini, with its brick hue and pink lentil flour base, affords protein, a dependable form, and successful aesthetics on your subsequent plate of pasta. This one, for some motive, tastes notably good with pink sauce but additionally works properly with a white Bolognese or extra conventional ragu. The truth that it’s natural perhaps doesn’t imply that a lot, nevertheless it’s a nice-to-have, too.

Nothing towards gluten, however you positively don’t want it for a fantastic bowl of pasta.