16 Pasta Brands To Buy At Whole Foods

There are a million and one pasta brands and gluten-free pasta alternatives available to the modern shopper these days. Whether you want a pasta produced with Old World methods and shaped in Old World style, a pasta twisted from forgotten grains brought back to life, or you're craving a noodle that's been made a vessel of added nutrients, Whole Foods Market is ground zero for the proliferation of pasta possibilities. How is any one shopper supposed to know which to buy?

Well, you can start as I did, by jumping in to research what's available before you show up to the store. Exploration of the pasta brands on offer at Whole Foods will take you across two aisles. From the wide array of refrigerated fresh pastas to the sea of SKUs in the dried foods section, there's a lot to catch. I visited my local Whole Foods in Jackson, Wyoming to help me get an understanding of what's available on store shelves.

Prices are current as of the date of publication and may vary based on region.

Whole Foods' in-house brand is by far the most plentiful pasta option stocked on store shelves. It comes in a range of varieties that touch on every category: There are gluten-free, refrigerated and fresh, and conventional or whole wheat pastas. Certified organic pastas include penne, spaghetti, fettucini, shells, elbows, linguini, angel hair, or sea shapes. They're also affordable. The most expensive option of dried pasta costs around $3.50.

The 365 brand's gluten-free pasta is made from corn and rice. It includes coveted celiac-friendly lasagna sheets, plus a tractor-shaped pasta for little ones (or the fully-grown kid inside us all). Many of the conventional and organic wheat pastas — crafted from durum wheat semolina — are certified products of Italy. Although there aren't a ton of whole wheat options, spaghetti and penne at least make the option available. Check your local Whole Foods for delicious cold options under the 365 brand, like a roasted red pepper and goat cheese girasole, market vegetable ravioli, or kale and cheese tortellini.

Boulder, Colorado-based Pastificio doesn't have a lot of options compared to other pasta brands you'll find on Whole Foods' shelves. What is available is pricier than most other options — around $10 for a 16-ounce box. (That box, by the way, is plastic-free and biodegradable, per the company.) With all that in mind, if you're in search of an artisan, high-quality pasta made from organic and heirloom wheat, Pastificio is worth the splurge.

Of the few pasta shapes Pastificio sells, some are certainly more common while a few others are one-of-a-kind for the Whole Foods' shelves. For example, at my location, there was rigatoni and fusilli (common), the twisted strands of casarecce (a little more rare), as well as pumpkin-shaped zucca and flower-shaped campanelle. The latter two can be hard shapes to find. When you consider the Italian-bronze extrudition process, and the slow-and-low drying temperatures used when shaping these pastas, the price-point feels a bit more accessible.

When it comes to pasta, finding decent, gluten-free alternatives isn't so difficult these days. In fact, finding great options isn't even that difficult when your local Whole Foods has so many options by Jovial Foods stocked in the pasta aisle. Although the company is known as being one of the first brands to bring an ancient grain called einkorn (not gluten-free) back to the market, it specializes in pastas grown and sourced directly from Italy.

In my local Whole Foods, Jovial had a huge list of pasta SKUs in all sorts of shapes and sizes. For example, you can get casarecce, capellini, spaghetti, bucatini, lasagna, and gluten-free orzo. There's a brown rice egg noodle version of tagliatelle, and also two shapes that were exclusive to Jovial: wavy strips of mafalda pasta, and small stars — called stellines — for your chicken soup recipes. Best of all, each option comes in under $6 per package.

Banza pasta comes in a bright orange package that screams "pick me." The product itself backs up the bold packaging; as far as Whole Foods' pasta brands go, nothing stacks up to Banza in terms of added nutrition. Thanks to the inclusion of chickpea flour (the label also contains pea starch, xanthan gum, and tapioca starch), each box of Banza pasta contains, at minimum, 20 grams of protein and 8 to 13 grams of fiber per serving. The choice to use chickpea flour is a sustainable one. Chickpeas (and legumes like them) are known to remediate soil quality, while also being a drought-resistant crop. In fact, Banza has received a CleanScan certification from The Detox Project, which guarantees the products don't contain glyphosate or residue of pesticides.

Banza's nutty-tasting chickpea flour pasta is sold in quite a few shapes, such as shells, elbows, cavatappi, rigatoni, rotini, spaghetti, buccatini, penne, cascatelli, and orzo. Certified gluten-free and with about four servings per 8-ounce package, an average of cost of $4.50 per box makes this an easy way to add more protein into your everyday meal.

If you ever want a tour that helps explain all the ways our food options are growing and changing, there's perhaps no better place to be than walking down the pasta aisle at Whole Foods, where brands promise new spins on time-honored methods, pasta made from grains you don't know, and exciting packaging. Between the flashy brands and innovative ingredients, the classic blue and gold boxes of De Cecco pasta stand like monuments to time-honored tradition.

At some Whole Foods stores, the quantity of De Cecco pastas might be too great to count. Of course, the no. 9 angel hair and no. 91 orecchiette will always have our attention, but the centuries-old brand is also out with whole wheat versions of its spaghetti, penne, and fusilli, too. Despite being one of the cheapest pastas you can buy at Whole Foods (most options are under $2.50), De Cecco promises quality pasta that's been grown, harvested, and shaped in the same way since 1886. The company leverages a time-honored, specific method of slow drying its pastas to ensure a quality that competes with the upstart companies that have flooded the pasta zone.

Besides Barilla and De Cecco, there aren't many Italian food brands on the market spread as wide as Rao's. There's an extensive line of jarred Rao's sauces (modeled after the famous, eponymous restaurant), a plethora of frozen entrees, pizzas, and even a ketchup line out there bearing the name. As far as dried pastas go, Rao's sits middle of the pack with other brands you'll find at Whole Foods. The cost comes in under $4 per 16-ounce container, and there aren't a ton of options to choose from besides some of the more basic pasta shapes.

Even with the no-frills approach, Rao's makes a worthy pasta to try. The company imports its pasta, made from durum semolina wheat, directly from Italy. Even among other bronze-die shaped pastas, it has a rough and craggy texture perfect for soaking up sauces. Convenient, given the product the company built its reputation on what happens to be one of the best marinaras in the game.

For some folks out there, certifications and labels will always and only ever be clever marketing ploys. If you appreciate label transparency, however, then choosing a pasta brand like Goodles can make good sense. Goodles began as a boxed mac and cheese brand. It was the first in its category to earn a Clean Label Certification, which promises consumers the product is free of chemicals, plastics, pesticides, and other toxins. The label is important when considering its plain, dried pasta options, considering that a box of Goodles pasta contains way more ingredients than your standard noodle.

What's in a box of Goodles? At the moment, the company only sells three shapes beyond its mac and cheese: Loopdy Loos (a cavatappi), Lucky Penne, and Curveballs (a pipette). All three are made from semolina wheat, but corn/rice gluten-free options of the first two are also available. Interestingly enough, each option (regular and gluten-free pasta) has chickpea protein included, along with extracted nutrients from a number of veggies: broccoli, spinach, kale, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, sunflower seed, cranberry, chlorella, and two different mushrooms. With a box of Goodles, you're getting 21+ plus vitamins and minerals from outside plant sources, 10 grams of protein, and a lot of fiber, too. Plus, Goodles is low on the glycemic index.

Brami is another pasta brand that boasts itself as being big on protein. Each of the three types sold at our local Whole Foods — a radiatori, fusilli, and macaroni pasta — has over 21 grams of protein per serving. These shapes are certified products of Italy and get their muscle from an Italian ingredient that's even older than pasta making itself: lupini beans.

A keto-friendly ingredient, lupini beans are normally pickled, salted, and eaten as a delicious aperitif snack. (Apparently, they were even once the marching fuel of Roman soldiers.) By mixing lupini flour with semolina wheat, Brami has created a pasta that's lower in carbs than many other competitors, which is beneficial if you have certain dietary restrictions. Besides the beans and grains, the only other ingredient to parse out is artisanal water. Around $4 for a 12-ounce package, this new-age Italian food is a bit higher in cost than some other brands.

You heard it here first: the Neapolitan-based Bella Italia may be one of the most underrated pasta brands you can buy at Whole Foods. It's a shame; unless you have an eye for the understated or homely, its packaging doesn't immediately stand out against bright blue or orange competitors. Even if you do have that kind of eye, all it takes is a little distraction, and it would be easy to miss this over more familiar brands.

Let's say you see the box. At $6.50 for a 12-ounce box, the price doesn't scream "buy me." Not if you look at pasta through an economic lens, at least. As a total package, though, here's where it's worth it. Bella Italia has the valuable novelty of being a company focused on unique ancient grains. Spelt farro strozzapreti, teff penne, and Kamut fusilli — a wheat berry-like grain thought to originate in the Fertile Crescent — were available at our local Whole Foods.

These grains impart nuanced but noticeable flavor differences to pasta. A little sweetness here, some nuttiness there, which can be enjoyable when you need to add some variation to a staple. Plus, these different types of grains offer diversified levels of protein and micronutrients. All that included in a package that can cook as quickly as 6 minutes? Easy sell.

Ever since its welcome-to-the-family in 2011, Denver-based Pappardelle's has been stocked in Whole Foods across the Rocky Mountains and the West. It went national a few years later. It's range of refrigerated pastas come in 9-ounce servings that are sold roughly between $8 to $10. What makes this pasta so special isn't just the unique lineup, but that it's an intensely considered pasta.

The Pappardelle's company takes its pasta process seriously — and has been doing so since the 1980s. The pasta is made in such small batches that the company has a limit: no more than 100 pounds of dough at a time. Raviolis and egg pastas are a big draw, so much so that, apparently, the Pope once dined on Pappardelle's noodles. As for you, the burrata ravioli wrapped in tomato basil dough has an attractive blush. You can also choose more plainly colored harvest squash ravioli in egg dough, or a ravioli filed with buffalo cheese. More standard fare includes both gluten-free and wheat gnocchi, or fettuccine, linguine, and pappardelle made from egg dough. If you're feeling something toothsome but different, some Whole Foods locations may even carry Pappardelle's potato and cheese pierogies for you to pick up.

A company that takes the artistry of pasta making so seriously the founders put it in the name, this California pasta maker is another that can be found in the fridge with the freshies. Artisola bills itself as the very first non-GMO organic option to hit that shelf, and it's a tough claim to contest. The cold packs of pasta have a minimum of 10 grams of protein and up to 14 depending on the type.

Craving cacio e pepe if you're doing pasta? There's an Artisola ravioli for that. (Also some tomato basil ravioli, and some with a medley of superfoods.) Uniquely, Artisola's only gluten-free option has a cauliflower dough that's actually mixed with rice flour and a grand slam of xanthan, locust bean, guar, and gum arabic. In some other pastas, panko, cane sugar, sunflower oil, or corn starch may be added, too. These aren't exactly processed ingredients, but it's good to know if you want to see as few things on the label as possible. At $8.50 for 8-ounce servings, the cost to portion size ratio limits your sharing options, compared to other brands on this list.

A stroll down the Whole Foods pasta aisle nets about 10 styles of noodle made by Seggiano — each a perfect example of pure pasta craft. Golden nests of perfectly dried spaghetti, bucatini, linguine, and tagliatelle are some of the most enticing options, but this company also specializes in big shapes. Wide and squat calamarata. Stovepipe-looking paccheri. Conchiglioni so deep you can hear the ocean. At a standard package size of 13.2 ounces, there's plenty of this finely crafted pasta to go around.

Seggiano pasta is made from hardy, organic Tuscan durum wheat sourced from the Orcia Valley. The dough is passed through a traditional bronze die. Seggiano may (texture-wise) be some of the roughest looking pasta in the store, which is encouraging to see and leaves your mind wondering about all the different types of sauces to pair with it. The dusky finish on these homespun strands is partly due to the slow drying process used to prepare them.

As a day-to-day pasta, the $8 price point of Frankies 457 is a little high. As an artisanal comparison to what's in store, however, Frankies has a strong purchase case. It's nearly 4 ounces larger per package than Seggiano, but the same cost. That's a bit less than one extra serving of pasta per pack of Frankies 457, but in this economy? It's enough to warrant some attention at Whole Foods.

Founded in New York but sourced and made in Italy, Frankies 457 is a toothsome, organic pasta that comes in several different forms. Unfortunately, the options in my local Whole Foods were a little limited, and by that, I mean there was just one pasta shape I went in knowing that I wanted but couldn't find: the busiate pasta. In all actuality, the availability covers a range of noodle types. My store had cavatelli, rigatoni, linguine, maniche, and pappardelle, each looking textured and ready to cook.

At first glance, the package of Rummo I picked up from the shelves looked like a piece of cracked leather. I might have even mistaken it for a tortilla strip. Mexican food it was not, however, but a nest of egg noodle tagliatelle. Craggy texture is a great sign when it comes to pasta, and Rummo delivers on that. It's indicative of the company's longevity with milling flour, which it's done since the mid-1800s. There's a 7-step process to making this pasta, which results in a noodle that's supreme at maintaining al dente texture after cooking.

Although this is an Italian company, and thus an Italian pasta through and through, one caveat to Rummo's U.S. pasta is that it contains 1% fortification in the form of niacin, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, and folic acid. The other 99% is pure durum semolina, so take that as you will. Rummo covers a spectrum of dried pasta shapes, including novelty pushed shapes like square spaghetti.

Ever since it rolled in with a promise of delivering food products made with regenerative agriculture, Patagonia Provisions has leveraged its parent brand's reputation as an Earth-forward company to deliver. Each of its three pasta styles — shells, fusilli, and penne — are made from high-fiber durum wheat and Kernza, a regenerative form of wheat that grows faster and deeper. This helps restore soil conditions that are normally impacted negatively by conventional farming of wheat.

A 12-ounce box goes for about $6.50 around my parts, but price may vary. From experience, these pastas have a nice, dark, whole-wheat color and a grainy texture that really soaks up sauce. They taste warm and wholesome, although that could be the glow of knowing that choosing this box of pasta over another could be contributing to a more circular form of farming.

Another popular and affordable gluten-free pasta brand you can buy at Whole Foods is Ancient Harvest. It comes in two shapes — penne and spaghetti — which are both made from corn, brown rice, and quinoa flours blended together. The packages are around 10 ounces and 8 ounces in size, respectively, and cost about $5 and $6 a piece.

It's not a bad deal for gluten-free pastas, and though Ancient Harvest's options are pretty sparse, my experience cooking this pasta has been relatively positive. Because of the grains, the pasta water even produces a better starch concentration than a lot of other gluten-free options, which is definitely something to consider, given its role in the Italian kitchen.

Whole Foods may be a national chain, but its offerings vary from store to store. That includes the pasta choices you'll find available at your local outlet. As such, the methodology for this article was straightforward.

To make sure the pasta brands I included had a relatively ubiquitous availability, I compared the inventory of my local Whole Foods in Jackson, Wyoming with that of a few cities across the country, like Washington D.C. and New Orleans. From there, I looked for brands that sold three pasta items or more. I also searched across the dry foods section and the refrigerated aisle for fresh pastas.