Product Review: Heartland Gluten Free Penne

It may not be the healthiest point of view, but I do believe I could eat pasta for every meal. Each size and shape offers a whole new adventure for me. Today, my favorite pasta is penne (Just because I had it for dinner. I’ll have a new favorite tomorrow, I’m sure.) For those that aren’t familiar with penne, look for tube-shaped pasta that is cut at an angle on each end.

I was pretty impressed with this Heartland Gluten Free Penne. The package states that it is made from a corn and rice blend. I have to tell you, the blend-masters at Heartland really know their stuff! The pasta is almost identical to traditional pasta in every way.

The directions on the package suggest cooking the gluten free penne for 11-13 minutes. At 11 minutes the pasta was still very chewy. We let it cook the additional two minutes and ended up with perfect al dente pasta. It was firm, flavorful and had a great bite.

I always have a hard time describing the flavor of a good pasta. In my mind the perfect pasta doesn’t have much of it’s own flavor. I judge it more on the lack of bad flavor and the ability to handle any sauce I want to throw at it (and I get pretty creative). This pasta exceeded all of my taste criteria. It has a simple flavor with no bad aftertaste or funny surprises.

I will happily recommend this gluten free penne to anyone, for any dish. I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about it.