Taste Test: Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Egg Fettuccine Pasta

Trader Joe’s sells a fresh gluten-free pasta, egg fettuccine. My wife and I tried it at home with Alfredo sauce (recipe below), and here’s what we thought.

My wife Lia, who has celiac, was very excited to see a new gluten-free pasta available at Trader Joe’s during our last visit. And unlike TJ’s other GF pastas, this one isn’t a dry pasta, but fresh. It’s egg fettuccine, and it’s in the refrigerated section, alongside their other fresh pasta products.

So, of course, we had to try it. We decided to make a very simple Alfredo sauce for it, to let the pasta really stand out (see recipe below).

The first thing I noticed when examining the package was that the product is made with only the necessary ingredients, about the same number of ingredients you might use if making GF pasta from scratch, including brown rice flour, water, potato starch, tapioca starch, whole egg, egg white, xanthan gum, and salt (see photo). There was only one ingredient I didn’t recognize and had to look up: glucono-delta-lactone. I found it is a leavening acid that also works as a preservative and is commonly used in baked goods, so I wasn’t concerned about that.

The next thing I noticed is that the cooking directions call for 3–4 minutes of cooking time. With pasta, Lia and I (she is usually in charge of cooking the pasta) always go for the shortest amount of recommended time, so we decided to cook it for 3 minutes, and it turned out to be the right amount.

One mistake we made was not using enough water and not stirring often enough, so we did get a number of noodles that stuck together. That really was our fault for not giving the noodles plenty of room to swim around as they boiled. I would recommend using at least 2 quarts of water.

Our verdict: the pasta is excellent!

We really enjoyed the texture of the pasta. It retained a nice al dente firmness, and the texture was consistent throughout each noodle—not a mushy bite anywhere. Even the noodles that had stuck together had cooked enough to be easily chewed, so the stuck noodles weren’t a disaster. And I didn’t see any noodles that had broken apart, as often happens when cooking dry GF pasta.

The flavor was also good—it tastes like pasta. The flavor and texture are exactly what you’d expect.

Finally—and I really liked this about the product—as we tossed the noodles in the sauce, they grabbed the sauce and held on to it, so they became evenly coated. They absorbed the sauce and its flavor just the right amount, without becoming mushy.

As you can probably tell, I highly recommend trying TJ’s GF egg fettuccine. I believe this is a product that can be enjoyed by everyone, even those who don’t have to eat a GF diet.

Here is the recipe for fettucine Alfredo that we used. It is a very simple Roman recipe that is basically just three ingredients: butter, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and egg fettuccine.

Ingredients:

• 1 9-ounce package Trader Joe’s GF egg fettuccine

• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted (I melted it directly in the bowl I used for tossing the pasta, by placing the bowl in my oven’s warming drawer)

• ¾ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

• For boiling the pasta, use 2 quarts water and 1 tablespoon sea salt

Instructions:

• Bring the water to a boil in a pot and add the salt; have a mixing bowl containing the melted butter ready

• Add the GF egg fettuccine and stir

• Cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently to keep the noodles from sticking

• At 3 minutes, drain the pasta and transfer it immediately (still dripping) to the bowl with the melted butter

• Sprinkle the grated cheese over the top of the pasta

• Toss and stir the pasta until it is thoroughly coated with the butter and cheese, and serve