Seriously, I said the same upthread. For me, when I was low carbing, pasta was dead last of my missed carbs, bread and rice was a lot higher. IMHO, you’re better off having the real thing in small quantities infrequently. And I mean very small, 2 oz dry -at most- was what I allowed myself, and that’s still 39g of carbs (6 of which are fiber, so 33 net) based on Barilla Whole Wheat pasta.
Otherwise, you’re going to use a lot more sauce / addons / what have you to cover up the other tastes, and the cognitive dissonance is only going to grow.
Yep. 100%. It’s a fool’s errand, as far as I’m concerned. You have to recalibrate your expectations or, as you said, just eat a small portion of what you like. If you can find a low carb solution to this problem that actually resembles pasta, you may as well write yourself a check for $100 million dollars at least.
The first time I ate trippa alla romana I thought it was (surprisingly? unsurprisingly?) very like pasta. I imagine it’s low in carbohydrate.
Low carb pasta is an oxymoron, so substitutes which function like pasta might be a better enquiry. Of course, not everyone is comfortable with eating shredded cow’s small stomach, even if they can source it. YMMV
I found that spiralized butternut squash (when served with a robust sauce) did it for me where spaghetti squash didn’t. It was annoyingly expensive to pay for the prepared tubs so I went through a phase of trying to find the best gadget for making my own noodles, but the firmness of butternut squash was too much for most of the household countertop spiralizers I tried. I ended up getting a hand tool with a peeler on one side and a noodle slicer on the other. That works well but is more work than I want to do regularly.
But the noodles it makes are very satisfying - quite firm, cook almost instantly in the microwave, and though not very pasta-like in flavor they do taste very good and provide a remarkably spaghetti-like mouth feel.
I personally use Miracle Noodle products. They’re made from konjac.
Related - one other thing I used to do more often is to make lasagna, but use deli sliced chicken instead of noodles. The chicken is bland but firm, and mostly serves as mechanical support for the stack up of the lasagna. It’s not really the same result, but it’s “close enough” for me. Note that you don’t get any of the starch that normally thickens the sauce, so you may need to compensate for that.
When I was doing keto, the closest I found to a good low carb pasta substitute was Palmini noodles. They’re made out of Hearts of Palm, which to me taste kind of like artichoke hearts, so to me they work best with lighter pasta dishes that would work with artichoke hearts, like chicken piccata or a nice white clam sauce.
Pros: if you like the taste of Hearts of Palm, you’ll like these noodles. More substantial than other veggie-based noodles like zucchini noodles-- won’t fall apart in the sauce.
Cons: As mentioned, they work best with lighter pasta sauces, not so much hearty red sauces. A bit on the expensive side.
Yea, whenever I buy pasta, I always look for the whole wheat stuff. And they make it easy for you, as there seems to be an industry code: green or blue boxes for standard pasta, and red or orange boxes for whole wheat.
We use the Barilla’s Whole Wheat Pasta that WE mentioned. It is lower in carbs. I’m an outlier in that I love the various squash and spiralized veggies as a pasta substitute.
The other thing to consider is why the OP is cutting carbs. If it is for weight loss, then using regular pasta but eating a small portion as a side dish might help. My gf will occasionally do a month of Dukan Diet, then once the weight loss is achieved, go back to her regular (low carb) diet.
When my doctor gave me a list of foods to cut out of my diet due to gout, I carefully read the list, then threw it out and looked for other ways to handle my problem.
I also find some of those options nice in specific dishes of course. But I think what we all keep coming back to is the OP’s exact question.
And for me, and @pulykamell, and to a greater or lesser extent everyone else responding, the answer to the first part is a resounding “Yes” and to the second “Plenty of low carb, but taste and texture… ehhhhh… (walks away)”.
I seem to recall another recent thread for our OP where they mentioned diabetic treatment they received along with other treatment which I -suspect- is why the doctors are telling them to cut the carbs. And only @Czarcasm can tell us exactly how low they want him to go - I mean I’ve used spiralized carrots on some dishes to great effect, but they, like some of the squashes, are much better than plain, or even whole wheat pasta, but still pretty high in GI.
I suspect it’s going to be a real issue to pick your battles. And again, entirely IMHO, having 4 servings of something that doesn’t quite scratch the itch is worse than having one, small serving of something that does, in terms of total carbs.
IMHO, YMMV, please take the doctor’s advice before internet randos like us.
Depends on what you are trying to do.
I had to reduce my A1C, and found that a flat-out reduction in total carbs was the only thing that worked. Lost something like 50 pounds along the way as well. (Gained 10-15 of them back since then, but that’s another story.) Going without lasagne or mac & cheese (or rice, or beans, or pretty much anything made with flour, especially pizza) for the better part of a year was not easy.
When I’m low carbing, it’s not as much the pasta I miss as the sauce/toppings. So for me, spaghetti squash with a layer of meat sauce and cheese, or a white sauce with sausage and spinach is satisfying. In those applications, the pasta (or spaghetti squash) is just a means to get the sauce into my mouth.
I love spaghetti squash, but I agree it’s a terrible substitute if you want to drench it in tomato sauce. It’s great as a side dish, with butter and Parmesan cheese. (Warning: It does not reheat well; if you have to do that, use the oven.)
I’ve tried low-carb pasta. Blecch! But that’s just me. (I will not recommend “alternate” foods, especially gluten-free, unless I have tried them myself.)
I found spaghetti squash was a touch too sweet for most of my dishes, and the konjac stuff tended to taste off, but stir-fried spiralized carrots worked great in Asian inspired stir fry noodle dishes.
But each person is going to be different, and in terms of the OPs request for pasta that tastes like -pasta-, that’s a hard row to hoe.
So, as I said, when I -had- to have some fettuccine alfredo, I just went for a very small serving of pasta with the sauce (homemade of course for the cheat). Because it was going to just not satisfy the craving if I used any substitute I had found. And if you keep trying, the carbs, even if low add up, as do the calories in a cream sauce (very quickly!).
That’s how I make it - I’ve posted about it before. I much prefer it that way. Occasionally I’ll use 1 noodle layer and the rest eggplant layers, but usually all eggplant layers. Delicious!
When you get that tingling in your feet and the Type 2 Diabetes diagnosis, you’ll either find your appetite for pasta will diminish, or you’ll wear the insulin injector the rest of your life.
