One of life's greatest pleasures is a steaming bowl of pasta, but when it comes to selecting the best type of pasta to buy, you can get pretty overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. Luckily, Italian-American chef and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich has some tips that can help you choose fresher pasta at the grocery store.

When shopping for dried, packaged pasta, Bastianich says to pay attention to the color and texture of the noodles, which indicates how long the pasta has been sitting on the shelf. Dryer-looking, cracked pasta may hint that a package has been sitting on the shelf for anywhere from a few months to up to a year or two.

Bastianich adds that you should look for noodles with a yellow hue and uniform texture that isn't too smooth or shiny; sauces won’t cling as well to slippery pasta, so a rougher surface is ideal. The celeb chef also suggests steering clear of pasta that is broken or splotchy, two more signs that it's been sitting on the shelf for too long.

Lastly, fresh pasta doesn't always trump dry pasta; going through the trouble of making or buying fresh pasta for a recipe that calls for dry pasta can skew the final dish in the wrong direction. Bastianich says that dried pasta made from only semolina flour and water is your best bet when choosing ingredients off the shelf.