Whether you have celiac disease or are simply gluten-sensitive, there’s an expansive selection of products to help you live gluten-free. Many pasta brands now offer options for gluten-free foodies to enjoy a bowl of macaroni, spaghetti and meatballs, or lasagna. With so much choice it can be hard to know which to pick, however. So we tasted and ranked 12 gluten-free pasta brands to find the boxes you do and don’t want in your pantry, and found Cappello’s to be a disappointing brand that gluten-free foodies should avoid.
Our ranking was based on taste, texture, and price, all of which factored into Cappello’s last-place spot. We sampled Cappello’s grain-free penne pasta made with almond flour and eggs and located in the frozen aisle. While we applaud the high-protein content and under-two-minute boiling time, the mushy yet tough and gummy texture and egg-forward flavor were offputting. Perhaps the almond flour was to blame for the baffling juxtaposition of textures that turned to mush in the boiling pot and yet still managed to retain a tough chewiness that felt nothing like the bouncy al-dente chew of typical wheat flour pasta. Despite the versatile and neutral taste that eggs are famous for, Cappello’s penne managed to overwhelm the palate with the taste of eggs, leaving an aftertaste that lingered after every bite. Not only were the taste and texture terrible, but the price was more than any of its decidedly superior competitors.
Cappello’s gluten-free pasta is unpopular
Negative reviews for Cappello’s gluten-free grain-free penne on BJ’s Wholesale along with negative reviews from Amazon for Cappello’s gluten-free, grain-free fettuccine using the same ingredients and formula as the penne echo our disappointment in taste and texture. Most reviews couldn’t get past the mushy texture, describing it as awful and disgusting. Many noted that upon boiling the pasta, it quickly disintegrated into the slimy, mushy consistency that they eventually had to throw in the trash. One BJ’s customer said that the nice, appealing packaging fooled them into buying the penne over their go-to gluten-free pasta brand despite the higher price. Unfortunately, the gamble didn’t pay off because of the absent flavor and a texture they described as “gooey and gritty like goo with sand.”
While Cappello’s has a lot of protein, other brands that ranked higher on our list also provide a line of grain-free, protein-rich pasta. For example, our winner, Taste Republic, offers both lentil and chickpea pasta. That said, a common theme with the winners on our list of gluten-free pastas is alternative grain ingredients like corn or brown rice, as well as potato starch in some cases. Consequently, sticking to a carb-heavy gluten-free pasta might be the best way to mimic the taste and texture of wheat pasta. You can always add protein with a ragu a la bolognese sauce, an extra tin of anchovies in a puttanesca sauce, or garbanzos like we do in this Roman pasta e ceci recipe.
