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Noodle Me This

Plenty

Photo by Anthony Verde

Look for these top choices for organic pasta next time you're at the supermarket.

When it comes to organic pasta, there are nearly as many flour bases as there are noodle shapes—semolina pappardelle, whole-wheat fusilli, spinach fettuccine. You could eat a different organic pasta dish every night of the week for a month and not suffer a single repeat. Plenty tested five brands to help you noodle your way through the plethora of choices at the grocery store.

Rummo, Organic Whole Wheat Penne Rigate $2.49 for a 16-ounce bag, pastarummo.com
Rummo’s organic penne cooked evenly in the suggested eleven minutes. Its firm texture and mild flavor worked well with many different sauces—although we thought it was downright heavenly swathed in a creamy alfredo.

Eden Organic Pasta Company, Organic Golden Amber Durum Wheat Vegetable Ribbons $3.69 for an 8-ounce box, edenpasta.com
Eden’s pappardelle-like ribbons cooked to al dente in about six minutes (but still had a slightly gummy texture). The lovely red, green, and off-white noodles were best dressed simply, with good, old-fashioned extra-virgin olive oil.

Bionaturae, 100% Whole Wheat Fusilli $2.79 for a 16-ounce bag, bionaturae.com
These twisty little noodles were pleasantly dense (if a little gritty) and left a flavor reminiscent of whole-wheat crackers—which some of our panel appreciated, and some did not. In our tasting, this pasta worked best with a big, powerful pesto sauce.

Organica Di Sicilia, Durum Semolina Rigatoni $2.19 for a 16-ounce bag
Although it took a full minute more of cooking time (nine minutes total) than the package suggested to reach al dente consistency, this pasta cooked evenly, had a buttery, almost gnocchi-like texture, and seemed to gently absorb the flavor of any sauce we put on it. Perfetto!

DeBoles, Organic Spinach Fettuccine $2.29 for an 8-ounce box, deboles.com
Though the cooked noodles stuck together slightly, DeBoles had a good, firm texture and a strong spinach flavor with a slight after-tang, likely from the addition of Jerusalem artichoke flour. We liked it best with marinara or good olive oil and parmesan.
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