Need More Fiber In Your Diet? Look Out For This Type Of Pasta

Fiber is a vital aspect of any diet, and while there are many staple ingredients that are surprising sources of the roughage, making a conscious effort to integrate more of it into your meals can prove to be fairly difficult. However, there is one type of pasta that is not only a great source of fiber, but is also generally considered one of the healthiest versions of the product that you can use: legume-based pastas. It is made with chickpeas, black beans, red lentils, green lentils, or yellow lentils rather than wheat. Due to its vastly different production process, the fiber-rich pasta provides a dissimilar flavor than what you may be used to, but it is well worth the change if you're looking for an easy way to boost your intake of the massively important carbohydrate.

The reason these pastas are such a great source of fiber is that legume beans are naturally much more fiber-rich than grains. The pastas they produce contain five times more than their white-flour counterparts. Plus, because legume-based dishes are generally lower in carbs and higher in protein than other variations, the gluten-free alternative could be a legitimate game changer for many people looking to improve their diet.

While it'd be incredibly useful if legume-based pastas could act as a one-for-one replacement in every traditional dish you cook, this isn't quite the case. The taste and texture of bean-centric pasta varies from dish to dish, so it can be difficult to adapt to the change if you're looking for consistency from your dishes. Some say that chickpea noodles tend to become very mushy while also providing both a grainy and starchy texture, even when fully cooked — which is partially why they ranked so low on our Aldi noodle taste test. Meanwhile, lentil pastas carry the taste of the bean itself far too much to be as versatile as those made with traditional flour.

Nevertheless, using legume-based pastas is ultimately a matter of trial and error. Many say finding the right brand and being meticulous about cooking the noodles at the correct speed and temperature, depending on the directions, is the key to success. Plus, while it will still provide a different taste to traditional pasta, there are plenty of recipes – such as Green Lentil Penne With Goat Cheese Sauce — that work even better with legume-based ingredients than anything else.