Is supermarket pasta any different to branded?

[reallyworriedjobhunter]

I am talking normal pasta.

One of the tubes in this photo is Napolina and one is Sainsbury's. No discernable difference at all? The Napolina one is very slightly bigger.

For a 500g packet, Napolina is £1.50 and Sainsbury's is 69p.

That looks suspiciously yellow though.

I thought the best pasta was supposed to be white from upthread.

I find you don't need as much of the more expensive pasta as it grows more but I still buy cheap unless expensive is on offer 🤣

I love De Cecco pasta and yes there is very much a difference in taste compared to own brand pasta from supermarkets (which I'd never serve to guests).

Like most things, you get what you pay for.

We have a lot of pasta in the store cupboard as we live in Italy and get through about 500g a day. At the moment we are eating quite a lot of Molisana as it was on special offer! It is paler and takes longer to cook than the supermarket brand and I think it's nicer but I'm not 100% sure I could tell them apart in a taste test....

Well if you got two brands of cornflake and photographed them next to each other like that they'd probably look very similar. Doesn't mean they'd taste the same or that one wouldn't be made from much cheaper ingredients.

Of course some brands are different/ better than others. Not everyone cares or notices and that's fine.

I like their polpa chopped tomatoes because they're quite concentrated and don't have citric acid added. I also like the cirio coarse passata in the twin pack jars, for the same reason, but I can never find them any more.

Curiously, this phrase was coined by Shirley Conran (Superwoman),
wife of Terence Conran, who first sold us pasta makers, at Habitat.

I find that cheaper pasta, no matter what the cooking time, tends to go from raw to mush, skipping the 'perfectly done' stage. Italian pasta doesn't do that.

Absolutely - until you try it you won't realise. I only buy Garofalo and it's soooo much better.

Lately we haven't enjoyed our pasta. I wasn't sure if it was the pasta or whatever we were having with it.

I've tried Asda Essentials at 42p and Asda own at 69p. I've read both reviews and they seem good but I put them straight into jars so I'm not sure which it was we didn't like.

I have bought pasta from an Italian deli and you can taste the difference. But it's not a huge difference and if you are using a lot of sauce probably not worth the expense.

I though they were all the same till I went to italy last year. Always buy branded Italian pasta now!

I buy dried pasta all the way from Italy and it is better than supermarket own. But I love pasta, can easily afford to do this and I want to do it. Though the best macaroni is Scottish somehow. Anyhow it’s my money and I spend it how I want, other people do the same I expect. Then everybody is happy 😃

Asda had the 4 x pack on offer recently. They are nice tomatoes but not worth rrp

the Molisano is nice but do we really think the restaurants that do pasta dishes are using expensive pasta or making their own? Some will at the higher end but the chain ones will be using whatever is the cheapest. Anyone work or worked in one can tell us?

Get a Philips pasta maker. It weighs the flour, tells you how much liquid to add then churns out (almost) perfect pasta in a variety of shapes in 3 minutes.

Well I think unless you're running an Italian restaurant or feeding a rugby team, it's probably more cost effective to buy the highest quality ready made pasta you can find, rather than paying over £200 for another one trick kitchen gadget that's probably a pain in the arse to clean.

Always get them on offer, of course!

Also in Italy, and the price difference between Barilla and "better" brands like De Cecco, Garofalo, Rummo and Molisana used to be a lot more than it is now, so we tended to stick to that.
Now the difference isn't so much, so I just buy whichever one of those is on offer.
DD is at university in the UK and I buy her Rummo or Garofalo in bulk from Amazon (along with bottles of Cirio passata rustica - the thicker one) and tins of Mutti.

I don't know anyone who makes their own pasta here. Never met anyone who does. Not even nonna, or for special occasions. My MIL who is in her 90s says they used to have to because they were poor. When I tell her homemade pasta is a bit of a hobby in the UK she laughs at me.

We buy fresh pasta occasionally, but not egg pasta usually.

There is quite a difference, and as an Italian my family and I can tell straight away, however in my opinion the important thing is the nutritional value, rather than the taste.
Italian families can often eat pasta at lunchtime, day in day out. This means that those who can afford a decent pasta will generally choose to buy one, because it makes up such a high proportion of their diet.
If however you are having only a couple of pasta dishes a week, and you enjoy the supermarket make, then personally I'd say that's the best option for you.

Extra info😆
We use Molisana or sometimes Liguori day to day here at home. To be honest this is because they are 100% Italian wheat, rather than a generic EU wheat, which is often left unspecified. We choose this because in general Italy has some of the highest standards regarding regulation of pesticides in food production.

Is this Marshalls? we buy it as its elbow macaroni, on offer at Morrisons,
although ‘milled in Scotland’ nowhere on the packet or website can I find
where the flour and semolina is grown.
There is a small company in Scotland making pasta from Scottish oats !

@notkeenonkiwis thank you for this extra info - we always thought
Liguori
was head and shoulders above other brands, now know why exactly

We have a real Italian pasta shop in our town I’ll ask if he sells Molisana

@CertainUncertain and Mancini, thanks!

This is the Mumsnet Pasta Information Board -

Molisana is on offer on Amazon at the mo'. They don't have all the shapes, but what they do have is £1.30 or so a pack. Here in Puglia it's €1,10 at the mo' so not a massive difference for superior quality.
I just did spaghetti and another brand to look out for which is up there with those mentioned is Voiello.

Mutti tin tomatoes makes a huge difference to decent sauces.

We ran out and used a different one recently for pizza sauce and it really made the sauce have a more acidic taste using basic tin tomatoes. I stock up of mutti when on offer.

We live not far from Italian border so have good selection of pasta and tomato brands a locally in supermarkets

Irony of ironies - I overcooked my Molisana pasta because I was scrolling on Mumsnet!