Blasphemy: Quinoa Pasta

I grew up eating pasta two maybe three times a week.

But now, every time I eat it, I'm afflicted with high-carb/low-protein guilt and a thanksgiving-full stomach.

Until last night.

I had Ancient Harvest Quinoa pasta. This is a great wheat-free alternative, peeps. And while eating it is blasphemy to my Italian culinary roots, I must say that it's pretty darn close to the texture, color and taste of regular semolina pasta. And, there are some real nutritional and digestive pluses:

• Quinoa protein content is very high (12%–18%).
• Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids, making it an unusually complete food.
• It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron.
• It's gluten-free and considered easy to digest.

Here's the trick, though. Undercook it. We Italians cook our pasta al dente and quinoa pasta (and from what I've heard all gluten-free pasta) is no exception to the rule. You must cook it al dente for the taste and texture to be right. Once my pasta was in the al dente state on the stove, I drained it*, added butter, a bit of olive oil, lots of salt, Parmiggiano Reggiano and parsley**. Simple. And molto buona.

Ancient Harvest pasta is a blend of non-GMO corn flours and organic quinoa flour. I have only tried the spaghetti (which is actually a little smaller in diameter than the spaghetti shape I'm used to) but they also offer elbows, linguine, shells, rotelle, pagoda garden (more blasphemy with this name), and veggie curls. Try one of these varieties and tell me what you think. It could be that the thinner the noodle, the more like the real thing. So, YMMV (your mileage may vary). I'm talking to you, pagoda garden.

Purchase Ancient Harvest Quinoa Pasta on Amazon

Wikipedia entry for Quinoa

Quinoa Corporation, makers of Ancient Harvest Supergrain Products

*I usually reserve a little pasta water to add back in. I like it a little brothy.

**Tip: Never add oil to the boiling pasta water. It prevents your sauce from sticking to the noodle.

Comments

[Heather Pennington]

Hey, nice post on quinoa pasta. I've tried it and love it. My room mate went gluten-free recently, and I joined her for a week to support her. We tried a few different kinds of Ancient Harvest pasta (rotelli, spaghetti, and shells) as well as the red quinoa grains. Love 'em. You're right about the undercooking too. These grains tend to cook fast!

[virginia Watkins]

Have you tried the Kamut pastas? I like the Eden brand. My eye is fooled by the beigey-golden color of the pasta and I swear it tastes better and has a better texture than the brown, whole wheat, flax and sprouted pastas. I'm not Italian but those just don't work for me.

[Carla Borelli]

Virginia, I haven't tried Kamut. I just figured it would taste crappy. Will try it. Thanks for the suggestion!
carla

[natalie]

i just cooked up my first batch of the quinoa elbows... very good! i cook pretty al dente anyway ;-) though actually, they took the full cook time... could be because i'm high altitude... i just tested it to see when it was ready. much like you, just stirred in olive oil, some fresh herbs from my garden, a little red wine vinegar, garlic powder, and an egg... yum!

[Melanie]

What a pleasant surprise this quinoa/corn flour pasta is! I've tried many alternatives to regular egg pasta, and this by far approximates and even surpasses egg pasta. I hope I can always find quinoa/corn flour pasta in the future