Gluten-Free Pastas

Enjoying your gluten-free lifestyle? Well, if you have found out that you need to eat 100% gluten-free food, and you’re wondering about those heaping pasta dishes your family has gathered around for generations, then read on a bit further. There’s no need to stand out there on the docks waving goodbye to your favorite pasta dishes as if they were sailing out on the Titanic.

In the first place, and for some... okay, for most people, the easiest way to eat gluten-free pastas is to buy packaged pasta, which we do sell here at The Gluten-Free Mall. Remember that every brand we carry is cooked up and taste tested by the staff here. Recently, we tasted Glutano, Pastariso, and Ancient Harvest Quinoa (pronounced kee-NWAH). Uh, for the second or third time.

In any case, all our products deserve your attention and have been reviewed extensively by card-carrying celiacs (ha-ha) and all of them do taste delicious—seriously! In the second place, perhaps the lesser-trodden path, is to make your own pasta. Wow. Just because you’ve been diagnosed with celiac disease does not mean that you have to build your own car every time you drive across town. That’s not at all the case, but, if you have a pasta maker, sitting up in the cupboard, maybe its still in the box, how about taking it down and clamping it to the counter once in a while? There’s no need to give it away because you’re gluten-free now—don’t let go of that pasta maker for lack of use. If you’re looking for one, I’ll give you a secret: Keep an eye out for them at the thrift store. Chances are, its hardly been used.

Anyway, for good homemade gluten-free pastas, keep quality gluten-free flours on hand. Throwing one together is no hassle at all. You can scour the recipes on Celiac.com or else buy one of our pre-mixed all purpose gluten-free flours. I recommend making one. Use equal parts rice flour and potato flour. Then add one third the amount of very fine corn flour. Add enough olive oil to get things moving, then lightly dampen with water. Add a handful of salt. Remember, we’re not using any eggs or gluten substance, so there’s less to stick a mixture like this together.

All pasta recipes are very dry, so keep your mixture as dry as possible, roll flat, and feed it through the machine. Set it to Pappardelle or Fettuccine size to get started. Boil quickly until it floats. Try that out for starters! Good Luck! For more specific pointers, try Celiac.com gluten-free noodle and dumpling recipes.

For more information, please visit the author's Celiac Disease Information Site.