Save Money on Gluten-Free Pasta

Though traditionally only followed by people with celiac disease, these days gluten-free diets are widely used for digestive disorders, autoimmune disease, autism and other conditions. Gluten-free convenience foods can be extremely expensive, as anyone on a gluten-free diet can tell you. One of the best ways to save money is to not eat gluten-free processed foods but instead stick to naturally gluten-free foods like rice, vegetables, meats, beans, etc. However, there are certain "processed" foods that are staples in even the most health- and budget-conscious family's home. Pasta is one of them.

In our household, where I am the only one who eats gluten-free but I am also the one doing almost all of the cooking, our whole household tends to eat many gluten-free meals just for the convenience of not having to cook multiple meals each night. To avoid dirtying two pots for cooking pasta, on pasta night we all eat gluten-free noodles. This is fine and dandy except that it's pricy. Our favorite brand (Tinkyada) is a whopping $3.69 for a 12 ounce bag at our local grocery store. This comes out to $0.307 per ounce. Fortunately I discoverd recently that Amazon offers a much better deal if you buy Tinkyada penne in bulk. They sell Tinkyada Brown Rice Penne Pasta, 5-Pound Bags (Pack of 2) for $31.29, which is $0.20 per ounce. This 10-pound package of pasta ships for free, and saves a lot of packaging as it comes divided into just two plastic bags. I simply open the bag and pour all of the pasta into an oversized glass jar which sits on top of our pantry cabinet. Ten pounds of pasta might sound like a lot, but at the rate we eat pasta in our home it's a great money-saver for us. Ten pounds of pasta purchased at retail would be $49.12, so buying our gluten-free pasta this way saves us $17.83! Mangia, mangia!