Snack Bar, Vol. 9: Pasta Pandemonium

The retail arm of acclaimed Brooklyn eatery Frankies Spuntino, Frankies 457's other home base is in Sicily, where they grow the olives that make their seriously divine olive oil. Their mission is to introduce Americans to the highest-quality Italian ingredients, and their pantry goods do not disappoint on that front. The Calabrian Chili Oil ($21.99) infused their flagship oil with three different Italian peppers (Peperoncini Lunghi, Diavolicchio Calabrese and Peperoncini Tondi dell Etna) for the perfect amount of kick that doesn't overpower. It was delicious drizzled on top of their toothsome cavatelli, which in turn was made from ancient grains from the mother country. Even reheated as leftovers the next day, the pasta kept its amazing springy texture and flavor — it's in a whole other league than supermarket pasta.

Ciao Pappy is another celebrated brand, earning mentions everywhere from goop to Town & Country despite being founded just two years ago. I was excited to try their jarred sauces after hearing the founder's story of preserving her father's (Pappy's) authentic recipes… but honestly found the results to be hit-or-miss. The Marinara Classico is nice and fresh, benefiting from its pared-down ingredient list, but the other two flavors felt unbalanced and acidic. Both the Marinara alla Pappy and the Creamy Calabrian have citric acid, which I'm assuming is the culprit, since I found that sour aftertaste to be synthetic.

If you're like me, you heard the term "bronze die" and pictured a metallic food coloring. Thankfully that's not at all what it refers to: instead, this pasta is extruded through bronze metal plates (called dies) that give the noodles their distinct shapes. Bronze die pasta is known for its texture, which is porous and thus absorbs flavors both inside and out. The result is an unbelievable bowl of pasta, where noodles made from just those two titular ingredients find perfect harmony with the sauce. I tried their campanelle and spaghetti and truly adored both.

Like the pastas above, this brand from Italian-American celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis boasts extremely high-quality ingredients and techniques. Organic semolina flour is combined with natural spring water in the heart of Italy's Abruzzo region, before the pasta is extruded from 100 year-old bronze dies and air-dried for 36 hours. In composition — and in its fantastic taste and texture — it's extremely similar to Flour + Water, with the key difference being the price point. Giadzy is almost twice as expensive, though that's mostly redeemed by its eye-popping packaging. This may be too much of a splurge for your own pasta shopping, but these oversized, graphically designed boxes would make for fantastic gifts. Everything about the experience feels elevated, and the deeper-cut shapes like paccheri and nodi marini only add to the charm.

As a former keto follower, I always avoided the grain-free, high-fiber pastas, since they'd still eat up 90% of my net carbs for the day anyway. Nowadays, I'm intrigued by Lupii's nutritional stats for other reasons. Made almost entirely from the lupini bean, a legume from the same family as peas and lentils, their pastas boast 12 grams of fiber per serving and 14 grams of plant-based protein. When I read that, I instantly pictured guilt-free bowls of pasta before or after the gym, and that was all I needed to hear to track some down. Flavor-wise, the lupini bean is a surprisingly nice, neutral substitute, but the texture was a bit gummy and got stuck in my teeth. Eating it with sauce helped a little in that regard, but that overly starchy quality is the big mark against Lupii. Otherwise, I found it to be a pretty solid product, especially if you're craving pasta but have certain macro goals in mind.

A massive name in the Italian market that I admittedly hadn't heard of until now, Bono is the largest producer of olive oil in Sicily. They very recently began their foray into making pasta sauces, with very successful results in my opinion. Though I haven't had a chance to sample flavors like Arrabbiatta, Ricotta or Truffle, I thoroughly enjoyed the freshness and zing of their Tomato & Basil sauce, which was much more balanced than Ciao Pappy's. The Alla Vodka packed in cream, parmesan and pecorino without that metallic taste that canned dairy so often gets, and was a delicious pairing with all of the noodles I tried. The only stumbling block for us online shoppers is that Bono is (mostly) only available in stores, with the exception of the Amazon Fresh link above for their Tomato & Basil and this link their Alla Vodka — both of which are highly overpriced. This is one worth keeping your eyes peeled for next time you do an IRL grocery haul.

The bean pastas just keep coming! Similar to Lupii, The Only Bean makes grain-free noodles that are high in protein and fiber — though impressively, this brand packs even more of a punch on that front. A small serving contains 25 grams of protein and a large has 44 grams, which are pretty whopping numbers for anything plant-based. It's rare to find any snack where the protein content is so much higher than the carbs, so The Only Bean is worth recommending for that alone (depending on your goals), though the texture of the noodles wasn't a total home run. Luckily, these noodles are thin enough that they don't gum up like Lupii's, and when covered in sauce they were a perfectly solid vessel without much of a distinct taste. The flavor names are slight misnomers — the Black Bean noodles are also black soybeans — but the Edamame Spaghetti was the standout for being ultra-thin like angel hair. All the better for disguising itself as regular pasta.

If I told you I had another better-for-you noodle on the docket, would you throw your laptop across the room? Well don't, because Goodles backs up their nutritional stats with bona fide mac-and-cheese flavor. The brand stands out by offering more than just protein and fiber: specifically 21 different nutrients extracted from plants like kale, pumpkin, mushrooms and more. That makes the classic cheddar cheese taste of their Cheddy Mac even more of a revelation. It's a damn good dead ringer for Kraft that's somehow also jam-packed with vitamins. Pair that with a Vegan is Believin' flavor that my plant-based friends lost their minds over and you've got a certified crowdpleaser.