Black bean penne pasta troubles

Misssquatiton

My husband and I were craving pasta and we are doing low carb. We picked up some black bean penne...
I've never had it before and from what tons of people said it is pretty much like a normal noodle.
I boiled it for 25 MINUTES. The box says 8-10. The texture is like a normal noodle cooked for MAYBE 4 minutes tops.
Were my expectations too high? Do you think the pasta was really old?
Directions read:
1.Bring water to rolling boil
2. Cook for 8-10 minutes
3. Drain

So, I highly doubt I got the directions wrong.

amy19355

Was the water salted? If yes I would try without salt and see if it makes a difference.

I know when I cook dried beans that adding salt does something that makes them stay hard and never get soft.

kam26001

I've never tried black bean penne but I use brown rice pasta often and it takes almost twice as long as the cooking time states. It's probably the stove in my case. I would just go by taste. It's probably going to be chewier than semolina based pasta.

TavistockToad

Black bean pasta is like pasta made out of black beans... it's not like actual pasta, IMO.

why did you boil it for 25 minutes if the box said 8-10?

Runaroundafieldx2

It's groose, and I love black beans

margbarco

When I made black bean pasta once it was al-dente for sure, with a gooey texture covering each noodle.

I much prefer red lentil pasta. It cooks more like regular pasta in a shorter time, and doesn’t have that slimy coating.

amy19355

After all the 'rave' reviews, I am reconsidering how I will use the box of black bean spaghetti pasta that I bought JUST the other day.

I'm leaning towards breaking it into 2" pieces and pressure cooking it with some broth, meat and vegetables. Will let you know how it turns out.

Runaroundafieldx2

amy19355 wrote: »

After all the 'rave' reviews, I am reconsidering how I will use the box of black bean spaghetti pasta that I bought JUST the other day.

I'm leaning towards breaking it into 2" pieces and pressure cooking it with some broth, meat and vegetables. Will let you know how it turns out.

I whizzed the rest of mine up in a blender and use a spoonful of a time to add to stews and soups.

AnnPT77

amy19355 wrote: »

After all the 'rave' reviews, I am reconsidering how I will use the box of black bean spaghetti pasta that I bought JUST the other day.

I'm leaning towards breaking it into 2" pieces and pressure cooking it with some broth, meat and vegetables. Will let you know how it turns out.

It's not textured like regular pasta. The kind in biggish pieces, I like fine in soups/stews or casseroles - it kind of cooks to nice-tasting mush. I find the small shapes (e.g. spaghetti, linguini shapes) more useful, but prefer them with pseudo-Asian sauces and veggies, more lightly cooked (not crisp, still a bit chewy). A particular favorite is a chili peanut sauce made with chili paste, peanut butter powder, rice wine vinegar, and spices/seasonings of choice (pick from minced fresh garlic, minced or grated fresh ginger, Szechuan peppercorns, chopped green onions, etc.). The skinny edamame pastas are tasty this way, too, and typically even higher in protein.

Of the higher-protein non-wheat pastas, for tomato or cheese sauce preparations, I prefer chickpea pasta (reasonable texture, but I find the flavor slightly flat so a hearty-tasting sauce is better), or pea pasta. I'm not sure those would be low carb enough, though. Spaghetti squash is another I'd put in that category. (Oddly, I find I mostly like it with tomato sauce only if I put fennel seed in the sauce, but that's probably just me being weird.)