Barilla Gluten Free Pasta – Penne

DISCLAIMER: This is a completely honest review.  I did not receive anything from Barilla to review this product.

As many of you probably already know, it’s not so easy to find a gluten free pasta that doesn’t get too mushy or break up in the bowl.  I’m sure too many Gluten Free Kosher readers have stood tenaciously over their boiling pots with their timers synchronized to perfection in order to make sure their gluten-free pasta did not turn into an unappetizing bowl of glop.  Plain old rice noodles tend to be the most susceptible to this dire state of affairs, but blends of certain gluten free grains can generally withstand a little more time in the pot without turning into inedible trash.

We ended up eating these Barilla Gluten Free Penne Pasta last night.  Here are my thoughts regarding this gluten-free pasta, and I hope it helps you out somehow.

The slogan on their box reads “At last, a gluten free pasta that tastes like real pasta!”  Well, there is no way you can get around the fact that this gluten free pasta has a definitive corn flavor, but I guess if you add butter and salt to it you can call it popcorn noodles and entertain the children. 

The texture of this gluten free pasta was really excellent.  It basically tasted like regular al dente pasta although it definitely had the corn flavor to it as it is a blend of rice and corn flour.  It was chewy enough without being offensive to the palate, and it handled the sauce and cheese ladled upon it quite nicely. 

There is one thing that bothers me, however.  I really wish that Barilla could come up with a low-glycemic high quality pasta chock full of protein.  200 calories per serving and 44 grams of carbs, especially when pasta servings are usually way much bigger than the servings indicated in the nutrition facts box is just way too ridiculous.  We all know the issues of eating high carbohydrate diets (ie when the government pushes a high carbohydrate diet because of whatever financial implications they benefit from and causes a national epidemic of obesity) so I think that it is up to the manufacturers to take some social responsibility and create appropriate products.  People need to eat more than 15 -20 noodles to be satiated.

In any case, if you want to try out Barilla’s Gluten Free Penne,you can get a box for $2 off of Amazon. Please click on the following images and help support Gluten-Free-Kosher.com.  Thanks!