You Couldn't Pay Us To Try This Aldi Brand Pasta Again

Pasta is a pantry staple in many homes, serving as a relatively quick and easy meal. Plus, it's highly versatile, allowing you to make everything from simple spaghetti and meatballs to fancier dishes like a garlicky shrimp scampi.

While you can use any store-bought pasta you like to make these meals, low-priced supermarket giant Aldi has plenty of options to pick from. The catch is that not every package you select will be the same quality. Plus, with options ranging from fresh, refrigerated pasta to the classic packets of dried noodles, it can be tough to know which to choose.

To help take the guesswork out of your grocery run, Daily Meal taste-tested 25 different types of Aldi store-bought pasta to find out which was the best and which was not worth your money. We based our ranking on the cooking consistency, texture, and flavor to give you a well-rounded feel for what each pasta meal brings to the table. Unfortunately, Simply Nature Hearts of Palm Angel Hair Pasta completely missed the mark, and you couldn't pay us to buy it again.

The idea of lowering calorie counts and reducing carbohydrates by making pasta from vegetables is nothing new. You can make zoodles out of spiralized zucchini or whip up a baked spaghetti squash recipe as an alternative to your usual semolina flour pasta noodles. Simply Nature attempts to do the same thing using hearts of palm for angel hair pasta, but it doesn't quite work. The noodles are bitter and gritty, which isn't exactly what you're going for with a rich bowl of pasta. One customer on Reddit notes, "They do have a tang to them, so I would recommend a tomato sauce over, say, olive oil or butter." So, even if you can get past those odd, bitter notes, you might not be able to pair the pasta with all your favorite sauces and toppings.

The next bit of trouble is the texture. While the noodles have a wet consistency when you first open the package, Daily Meal found that they developed a crunchy texture after zapping them in the microwave. Other shoppers report that the noodles maintain an odd, wet feel after they are heated, despite the firm texture. One customer on Reddit notes a possible workaround, suggesting "squeezing them in paper towels to get as much moisture [out] as possible before adding sauce." Another Reddit reviewer notes that the issues with the texture mean that "it reminds me of eating a pretty undercooked noodle." With all that said, there are much better options for veggie-based pasta and the next time you're at Aldi and hunting for noodles, these should be skipped.