The 5 Best Pasta Brands of 2025 (We Tried 8)

As much as we love making homemade pasta, kneading, rolling, and cutting dough isn’t always practical when we’re trying to get dinner on the table quickly. That’s where dried pasta comes in: It’s the ultimate dinner champion. There are dozens of pasta shapes, but we’re mainly talking about spaghetti, which is the most common pasta shape and pairs with just about any sauce (whether it’s a hearty spaghetti dinner or bowl of carbonara).

Who doesn’t love the convenience of a box? To find out which spaghetti is the best, we spent an entire afternoon tasting our way through eight different brands. 

The spaghetti section is a surprisingly crowded space — between the household name brands and up-and-coming entrants, we ended up narrowing our list of nearly two-dozen contenders to a solid set of eight. Availability, popularity, and, of course, price were our three biggest criteria. (At the time of tasting, boxes ranged from $0.99 to $4, with most hovering around $2.) We also asked our editorial team for their expert input. 

On the day of the tasting, the piles of spaghetti looked nearly identical. There were some differences in color and width, but they were minor. After sampling each brand, we discovered the majority of the pasta noodles also tasted virtually the same. There was one  spaghetti that stood out for its “restaurant-style” quality, though.

When all the tallies were in, Barilla Spaghetti Pasta earned the honors of the best pasta. We’ll be honest — we were surprised. Not because Barilla isn’t iconic (it is!). But it beat out every other brand, including a few specialty brands that were nearly three times as expensive. Alex Foster, our editorial assistant, practically gushed over the thicker-cut, “restaurant-style” quality of this pasta. She summed up her true feelings in just five words: “Nice chew, would definitely buy.”

Rachelle, our senior product manager of special orojects, was a big fan of its “smooth texture.” (She, along with a few other testers, ranked Barilla as her top pick!). It doesn’t hurt that this was also the cheapest pasta in the bunch, although it tasted anything but.

“Perfectly al dente” and “hearty” were the two adjectives that Mara, our director of groceries, used to describe Rummo Spaghetti Pasta. (She also noted it would be delicious paired with a great store-bought marinara sauce, and we agree!). She and Alex each ranked this brand as their favorite pasta. “It has the best texture out of the bunch,” noted Alex.

Those rave reviews helped the pasta secure runner-up status. The only reason it didn’t take first place? Barilla was so good.

Ali, our groceries editor, along with a few other testers had a hard time comparing the brands with each other (tiny bowls of delicious spaghetti … what’s not to love?). In the end, her favorite was San Giorgio Spaghetti. While each and every noodle in this taste test was seasoned with just salt and butter, Ali found San Giorgio had the most “compelling” flavor. It really managed to taste a bit more than the sum of its parts. Alex also added that this is a “great vessel” for sauce, which we all agreed on.

The one area of contention? Some testers, like Rachelle, found it a bit too thin and slightly “gummier” than other brands. Still, it’s a great price (the second most affordable on the list) and a standout choice. 

As we mentioned earlier, there were a lot of good options in this mix of brands. So the top picks really did win by a hair or, should we say, strand. DeCecco Spaghetti “tastes like a fine pasta,” wrote Greg, our people operations manager, which is high praise from the concise critic. Others, like Rachelle, didn’t get a ton of flavor from the noodles, but still felt it would be great with a bit of sauce added. 

We can’t reiterate enough how there wasn’t a singular “bad” pasta in the bunch — some brands just stood out more than others. Rao’s Homemade Spaghetti was “really, really tasty,” wrote Ali, and we think that second “really,” coupled with a few testers ranking it as their top pick, earned it a proper shout-out.

While a few other tasters thoroughly enjoyed this pasta, some, like Vicky, our studio director, found herself “wanting a bit more.” All in all, though, it’s a great thing to have in your pantry, especially nearby a jar of the brand’s iconic marinara sauce.

We recruited seven staff members to randomly taste eight different store-bought pasta brands. Ahead of the tasting Maya, our studio assistant, cooked each spaghetti according to its packaging directions and seasoned them with equal amounts of butter. She assigned each spaghetti a letter — A through H — to conceal the brands’ identities. We also had water as a palate cleanser on hand during the tasting.

Tasters were encouraged to sample the pasta brands in random order (to avoid giving any particular brand an advantage) before writing down their thoughts. Our team then rated each one on a scale of one to five (1 = No, thanks; 2 = Meh; 3 = Pretty good; 4 = Really like; 5 = Yes, Please!) across four criteria — look, smell, texture, and flavor — and included any specific observations, tasting notes, and general opinions worth mentioning. They were also asked to answer, arguably, the most important question of all: Would you buy this spaghetti?

To decide which spaghetti is worth buying, we recruited seven volunteer testers who work at Apartment Therapy Media (our parent company) to evaluate eight different dried pasta brands based on texture, look, smell, desire to repurchase, and, of course, flavor. 

Tasters were unaware of the brands involved and sampled each one randomly. Each taster independently filled out a score sheet; they scored and ranked each pasta without larger discussion or influence from the group throughout the entirety of the test. It was only after all evaluations were completed that we tallied the scores to determine the winners.

Did your favorite spaghetti brand make the list? Tell us about it in the comments below.