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I used to think cheap pasta was all the same until I actually paid attention | Cheap Eats Showdown - Guest Forum

I used to think cheap pasta was all the same until I actually paid attention

For years I bought the store brand elbows for 89 cents a box and figured the expensive stuff was just marketing. Then my neighbor gave me a box of De Cecco because she bought too much by accident. I made the same sauce I always do, ground beef and canned tomatoes, and the texture was totally different. The cheap stuff gets mushy if you look at it wrong but the good brand held its shape even after I forgot it on the stove for an extra 2 minutes. Now I watch for sales and stock up when it drops under 1.50 a box. I still use store brand for casseroles but for plain pasta with sauce I can actually taste the difference now. Anyone else notice a big gap between budget brands on certain things or am I just being picky?

2 comments

2 Comments

grayjohnson3mo ago

Makes sense though because pasta is just flour and water so the quality of the flour and how they dry it actually matters. Once you notice the difference it's hard to un-notice it like cheap shredded cheese that's coated in sawdust.

brookefox3mo ago

Back when I was in Italy on a job site years ago, I had some pasta from a little shop that milled their own flour and dried it slow over a couple days. I don't know the exact numbers but it was something like 48 hours minimum, not that 4 hour high heat stuff you see on most boxes. @grayjohnson, you're not wrong about the sawdust cheese comparison, but I gotta push back a little. A lot of times people act like cheap pasta is basically inedible and that's just not true for most of us who aren't food critics. In my experience, a good sauce and proper salt can cover up a lot of sins from a $1 box, and most folks can't tell the difference in a blind taste test anyway. So yeah, premium pasta has its place, but your mileage may vary on whether it's worth the jump in price for everyday meals.