The 9 Greatest 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 prepare dinner and liable to mealiness; gluten-free pizza crusts may very well 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 underneath fireplace.

However, as with the continuing betterment of vegan meals, occasions have modified — and lately, if you recognize the place to look, there are various formidable, 100-percent-zero-gluten merchandise in the marketplace, 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 typically have a better protein content material than their durum wheat counterparts, making them an more and more interesting selection for a broader viewers than simply the gluten-sensitive. And in contrast to the grey outdated days, when discovering a satisfactory field of gluten-free spaghetti or penne appeared the perfect we may do, in 2025, manufacturers are having far more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 customarily abide by a zero-gluten weight loss program to keep away from pointless ache. What was once a thorn in my aspect has really develop into, in my eyes, an incredible factor: I now 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 nearly 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 purchase proper now. The gluten-free pastas beneath have been examined and rated by form, texture, style, and total high quality.

What Makes a Good Gluten-Free Pasta

Gluten-free pastas are usually 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 in the marketplace now for contemporary 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 an incredible 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 while 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.” In brief, the explanation some gluten-free pastas battle to realize that basic 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.

Nicole Adlman

So how do you prepare 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 advised prepare dinner time, and ending it in a sauce that reduces with the pasta for the final minute or two. When he’s not making contemporary 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 apply, is that I’ve to prepare dinner gluten-free pastas for even much less time than that to succeed in the elusive al dente texture I would like earlier than I end it with sauces, greens, or proteins. For many pastas on this checklist, I cut back the advised cooking time by half, typically even a bit extra, relying on the dimensions and sort of pasta; this additionally includes ensuring my water is really at a rolling boil earlier than I begin the pasta’s prepare dinner time. The prepare 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. (For those who don’t consider me on the half-time issue, attempt it.)

The Greatest Gluten-Free Pasta

Greatest 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 without doubt one of the trickier manufacturers to prepare 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 stage I like earlier than I end cooking the noodles in a sauce. That stated, to every their very own: Some folks would possibly like extra pliable noodles, so prepare dinner to your desire.

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

Greatest Gluten-Free Spaghetti: Bionaturae Gluten-Free Spaghetti

Typically, you simply want a giant 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 better than the sum of its components. You’ll get a great bowl of spaghetti if you happen to nail the prepare 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 could 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 just too normcore.

Greatest 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 while 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 packing 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). Fingers 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 virtually 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.

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

If in case you 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 without doubt one of the most foolproof packaged pasta manufacturers of all time — and its gluten-free choice lives as much as its identify. The noodles prepare dinner simply (sure, I do suggest shortening the advised prepare 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 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.

Greatest Gluten-Free Corkscrew Form: Kaizen Fusilli or Radiatori

Kaizen, a newish gluten-free pasta model, leans into the legume flour pasta development with its lupini-bean-flour pastas, that are texturally fortified with fava bean protein, tapioca starch, and xanthan gum. For those who’re questioning if these noodles are additionally supremely excessive in protein, the reply is sure. I admire the model’s advised prepare 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 just a few nights prior combined 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.

Greatest Gluten-Free Orzo: DeLallo Gluten-Free Orzo

Many gluten-free pasta traces 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 DeLello’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. However it additionally holds its personal on the prepare dinner and takes nicely to each richer, velvety sauces in addition to less complicated recipes and barely there accoutrements.

Greatest 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 kind of pasta to make the pastina girlies joyful, and stelline, the micro star form, is usually 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 if you happen to boil it for the correct amount of time (pastina can boil nearer to its advised cooking time, however check it across the two-minute mark earlier than the prepare dinner finishes). Stir these right into a golden hen broth with a pat of butter and dusting of Parmesan cheese for a bowl of most consolation.

Greatest 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 great substitute through its corn-flour-based anellini. Now you’ll be able to 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 a large success in our home, and one thing that my toddler likes topped with a small snowfall of Parmesan cheese.

Greatest Gluten-Free Natural Pasta: Rustichella Natural Gluten Free Crimson Lentil Sedanini

Need 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, gives protein, a dependable form, and profitable aesthetics on your subsequent plate of pasta. This one, for some cause, tastes notably good with pink sauce but in addition works properly with a white Bolognese or extra conventional ragu. The truth that it’s natural possibly doesn’t imply that a lot, but it surely’s a nice-to-have, too.

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