A Blind Taste Test Picks the Best Store-Bought Pasta

Dry pasta is easy to find, keeps for a long time and has a great texture. But which brand is best? A writer at Delish tried to find out by testing nine brands without knowing which was which.

Five were higher-priced brands: Garofalo, Rummo, Sfoglini, Rao's and Colavita. Four were budget-friendly: Ronzoni, Barilla, De Cecco and San Giorgio. To keep the test fair, the writer used the same amount of water, the same amount of pasta and the same shape, rigatoni, for every brand. Each was cooked following the package instructions for "al dente," which means cooked but still a little firm. The writer left out the salt for the experiment.

De Cecco won as the best budget pasta. It is bronze-cut, which means it is shaped using bronze tools, and the writer says that helps it hold on to sauce much better than pasta made with Teflon-coated tools. It is also cheap, and the writer believes many restaurants use it.

Rummo was named the best mid-priced pasta. It was a little thicker than the others and had a good chewy bite with a slight crunch. It cooked to al dente in the time on the package. Rummo is also bronze-cut and slow-dried, and it is made in Italy.

Garofalo took the top spot overall. The writer says bronze-cut, slow-dried pasta is the best choice because it is better quality, helps sauce stick and is more nutritious. Garofalo stood out because it is the only pasta with an official "Al Dente" certification. According to the company, the test measures whether the pasta can keep its structure even after cooking beyond the ideal time. In other words, it should stay firm even if it is cooked a little too long. Garofalo created this test and checked it with Bureau Veritas, a company that offers food safety and other certification services.

Garofalo also has a PGI label, which stands for protected geographical indication. It guarantees that part of the pasta-making happens in Gragnano, a town in the Campania region of Italy that is known as the most famous pasta-making city in the world.