Ciao a tutti! Today we celebrate world pasta day, the world conference which is being held this year in Istanbul, Turkey!
What does this mean for us? That we should be celebrating all kinds of pasta! And for vegans, this is great because unless it’s fresh made with egg, we really don’t have any worries at all if we can eat it or not! 🙂
So what can be pasta be made out of?? Let’s have a look:
- hard durum flour
- semolina
- corn
- rice
- quinoa
- spelt
- kamut
- soy
- vegetable (spinach or tomato, but still made with flour)
And then shapes? Hundreds! Depending on what type of dish you are cooking, different pastas will serve you better. For heavier sauces, such as tomato or coconut milk sauces, pasta shapes such as rotolini, penne, rigatoni and fusilli, for example. These compact pastas hold the sauces very nicely. Wheat flour and corn pastas are great with sauces because the pasta taste is versatile enough to go with anything.
Rice pastas are usually a bit stickier and are great for using in soups or sauteeing. They usually come in the form of linguini or spaghetti shapes, but can also be penne or fusilli shaped. The pasta itself you can guess, tastes like rice.
Quinoa pastas are great for cold pasta dishes or side dishes. An ancient grain, the pasta in itself has a great nutty flavor and is excellent mixed with veggies or just a bit of olive oil! No heavy sauces required since the pasta alone is delicious! This pasta is very easy on the digestive system, but maybe not so easy on the budget. Compact with protein and nutrients, it is one of the better pastas to have.
Kamut and spelt pastas have a robust, nutty taste to them and are quite a treat! They are considered ancient grains too and are full of protein and other nutrients that many wheat hybrid pastas do not have. They must not be too overcooked or may begin to break up, but it can depend on the brand as well. White sauces go great with these pastas.
Have a go at experimenting! This is one department vegans can really excel at!!
by 