Recently my sister’s husband had a health fair at his office which usually means some distributor comes in to peddle pseudo-healthy foods, health bars, proteins and other things you could probably buy for cheaper if you used Amazon. Well he came across a GF pasta and of course thought of his bubble boy of a brother-in-law. He sent me a picture and after reading the ingredients I thought I would give it a try. I have had another of their bean-based pastas before which I’ve blogged about – mung bean pasta anyone?, but this was was a collection of chickpea, pea, potato and rice flour and several other GF grains which peaked my interest. I had all those in some way shape or form as a pasta before but never mixed together.

I’ve come to find that when GF food manufacturers mix a lot of these grains together it usually leads to better consistency overall (this is the case for a lot of baking or breading flour mixtures). Banza is a rapidly growing gluten-fee pasta brand that I have come to know and love. Their fusilli is lights out the best and tastiest GF pasta I’ve had and their elbow pasta is before for supercharging any homemade soup or stew I’ve made. But back to the matter at hand…

Explore Cuisine expertise seems to be in converting all kinds of legumes into legit pasta options. Edamame, black bean, adzuki bean, soybean, the list goes on. Little or no sodium, very little if any carbs, no sugars, no fat and always a good amount of protein for a pasta. The fusilli was very easy to make as it only takes 9-11 minutes in simmering warm water after bringing it to a boil. I drain with cold water to stop the cooking process and then drain. Dress it with olive oil, salt, pepper, parsley and sometimes red pepper flakes because it magically helps with over heating later in the day and voila! Done.

As far as stacking up against Banza, I find that this brand is slightly more tasty, however, does not warm up as well after initially being cooked. So if al dente is your forte, than this is the healthy pasta choice for you.