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Whole Wheat Pasta


Pam R

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I haven't been thrilled with any of the whole wheat pasta I've tried. Any recommendations for a good brand of dried whole-wheat pasta? If I can find it at the local grocery store, great -- but not necessary.

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  • 3 weeks later...
I haven't been thrilled with any of the whole wheat pasta I've tried.  Any recommendations for a good brand of dried whole-wheat pasta? If I can find it at the local grocery store, great -- but not necessary.

Hi Pam,

I will check the brands I have at home but in general I have not enjoyed any of the store-brought brands (ex. Unico, Italpasta). I've been very pleased with the italian-made brands though..I don't know what the exact difference is but the consistency is closer to an all-white flour and holds up alot better cooked.

I was able to get these at an Italian deli...you should be able to too.

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Probably the reason I've never seen whole wheat pasta even offered in a restaurant in Italy is because they suck!

And the few times I've tried the available ones I can buy, they suck!

Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

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Ronzoni's Healthy Harvest, with its "whole wheat blend," is one of the best of the bunch, IMHO.

Blech, that is a sad state of affairs. I can't stand that one! If that's the best, it's a good thing I didn't try too many others! :shock: Do you like it, or just tolerate it? Maybe our tastes just differ...

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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Well, it can be eaten like it's eaten in Italy - 2 oz. portions - 200 calories.

I found the Bionaturae WW just as vile as all the rest of the whole wheats, half whole wheats, and whatever else is being pawned off as an alternative to the real thing.

Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

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Whole wheat pasta sucks. There's no two ways about it. It's a waste of good salted water.

I've had some pasta made out of emmer wheat -- pasta di grano farro in Italy -- that supposedly has many of the advantages of whole wheat pasta, but is reasonably similar to real pasta.

--

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With the theory that I should spend the most money possible and buy Italian, I bought the Rustichella d'Abruzzi whole wheat spaghetti. I am crazy about their pasta (altho in the interests of budget I often use DiCecco.) The whole wheat was inedible. I'm going to stick to the regular stuff and get my fiber some other way.

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You could always make your own.

There's a whole wheat spaghetti being sold on ethnicgrocer.com. I can't make out the brand:

Spaghetti Whole Wheat link

 

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Tim Oliver

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I've never found one that wasn't gritty and ixky. The question is, why are we eating whole wheat pasta? To try to increase our intake of whole grains? I'd rather eat Dreamfield's Low Carb pasta (which tastes fine and has decent texture) and supplement it with good whole wheat bread !

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Ronzoni's Healthy Harvest, with its "whole wheat blend," is one of the best of the bunch, IMHO.

Blech, that is a sad state of affairs. I can't stand that one! If that's the best, it's a good thing I didn't try too many others! :shock: Do you like it, or just tolerate it? Maybe our tastes just differ...

At my age, it's

.

-- Jeff

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." -- Groucho Marx

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Yea. . . I don't quite understand the rationale behind eating whole wheat pasta. One serving of De Cecco whole wheat linguine is 180 calories, 35 grams of carbohydrates and 7 grams of dietary fiber. One serving of De Cecco regular linguine is 200 calories 41 grams of carbohydrates and 2 grams of dietary fiber. Personally, I'd rather have a small serving of steel-cut oats for breakfast to make up the difference in dietary fiber and eat the regular linguine.

--

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I agree with all who say WW pasta sucks. It's just not pasta, it's a whole other animal and i don't like it. After thinking it over, I decided that semolina is already a better quality flour than "white"- So I buy the best 100% durum semolina brand I can find and am most happy with that.

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I agree that whole-wheat pasta sucks, but then again I only ever served it the regular way, hot with sauce. You know, as a dish where the focus is on the pasta. No surprise that didn't work, but now I wonder if it would be less icky in a dish that is less about the pasta. Like a cold pasta salad or a hearty soup.

Before I go buy some whole-wheat pasta to find out for myself, has anyone tried this? Are there ways to make whole-wheat pasta more tolerable?

My eGullet foodblog: Spring in Tokyo

My regular blog: Blue Lotus

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..., but now I wonder if it would be less icky in a dish that is less about the pasta. Like a cold pasta salad or a hearty soup.

smallworld,

The buckwheat Soba noodle from Japan is obviously excellent in cold salad. I like Soba both hot & cold- much better than WW.

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..., but now I wonder if it would be less icky in a dish that is less about the pasta. Like a cold pasta salad or a hearty soup.

smallworld,

The buckwheat Soba noodle from Japan is obviously excellent in cold salad. I like Soba both hot & cold- much better than WW.

This is true, but I bet soba noodles taste weird if you try to sauce them with a bolognese. I wonder if there isn't an appropriate use of whole wheat pasta unrelated to the classic Italian uses of standard pasta. I don't recall whether I liked the WW noodles themselves or not, only that they were objectionable in the dishes I tried them in.

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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I haven't been thrilled with any of the whole wheat pasta I've tried.  Any recommendations for a good brand of dried whole-wheat pasta? If I can find it at the local grocery store, great -- but not necessary.

I find that the President's Choice Blue Menu whole wheat pastas aren't too bad. At least they are no worse than the rest but are often priced attractively, and they come in lots of crazy shapes that I can't pronounce properly.

I have come to realize that if one wants pasta plus the benefits of a whole grain then they are better off putting that good stuff in the sauce or in the accompanying bread.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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Like others, I can't stand whole-wheat pasta. However, I have found certain 'enhanced' multigrain pastas (such as Barilla Plus and Trader Joe's house-branded version of same) to be an excellent compromise - very little flavor difference, with notably better nutritional changes. More details at the Barilla site - in brief, legume flour is mixed in for protein and flax/oats for fiber.

I've turned several friends onto it as well - all of us now seek it out consistently and only get other pastas if 'Plus' is unavailable in the format we need. YMMV.

David aka "DCP"

Amateur protein denaturer, Maillard reaction experimenter, & gourmand-at-large

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