Chickpea Pasta: Banza, Barilla, and the High-Protein Boom

Chickpea pasta is the legume-based pasta alternative — ground chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour, sometimes blended with lentil and rice, extruded into traditional Italian shapes. It runs roughly 20g of protein and 5g of fiber per 2-ounce serving, well above wheat pasta's 7g and 2g. Banza ($3.99 at Whole Foods), Barilla Red Lentil + Chickpea ($2.79 at Kroger), and Modern Table ($3.49 at Target) are the three brands carrying the US category in 2026.

What is Chickpea Pasta?

Chickpea pasta is a 2010s American invention. The category effectively didn't exist before 2014, when Brian Rudolph founded Banza out of a Detroit kitchen — he wanted to keep eating pasta while managing his own dietary needs, and chickpea flour was the legume with the closest texture-to-wheat ratio he could find. The first Banza boxes hit Fairway Market in New York that year. By 2017 Banza was in Whole Foods nationally; by 2020 Costco was carrying it in 6-pack family bulk; by 2024 the gluten-free pasta category Banza helped create was a roughly $2 billion US market.

The technical story is that chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour holds shape through dry extrusion in a way most alternative flours don't. The dough behaves enough like semolina that the same factory equipment — including bronze-die extruders (the soft-metal forms that scuff microscopic ridges into the pasta surface so sauce can grip) — works on it with only minor tuning. Banza, Modern Table, and the better store brands run bronze-die lines; the cheaper end runs smoother Teflon-die. That's why a $3.99 Banza penne grips marinara visibly better than a $1.99 store-brand red-lentil rotini does.

The protein and fiber numbers are the real argument for chickpea pasta over wheat. A 2-oz serving of Banza penne carries 20g of protein and 5g of fiber against Barilla semolina's 7g and 2g — a meal-changing difference for athletes, vegetarians, and anyone managing blood sugar. Net carbs land lower too, around 32g versus 38g. Chickpea pasta clears the FDA "high protein" threshold by a wide margin — see the high-protein noodle guide for how it compares against edamame, lentil, and lupin pasta. (Note for IBS readers: chickpea pasta is high-FODMAP due to galacto-oligosaccharides; rice or 100% buckwheat soba is the low-FODMAP swap.)

One technique caveat that doesn't apply to wheat pasta: chickpeas release significantly more starch into the cooking water. Reserve a half cup of that pasta water (the starchy cooking liquid) before draining — it's the binder that emulsifies oil-based sauces and is doubly useful here because chickpea pasta's surface gives up its own starch faster than wheat.

Flavor Profile

Chickpea pasta tastes earthier than wheat. The flavor is faintly nutty, a little vegetal, with the same bean-y undertone you get from hummus or socca (Provençal chickpea pancake) — present but mild, not assertive. The bite is denser than semolina, almost meaty, with more resistance per mouthful. That density is partly why a smaller serving feels filling.

The bronze-die surface is the technical win. Marinara, vodka sauce, and oil-based dressings cling to chickpea penne the way they cling to a $5 Rummo strand — more visibly than they do to slick, Teflon-extruded wheat pasta from the bottom shelf. For showcase dishes where the pasta is the dish (cacio e pepe, aglio e olio), the chickpea flavor reads through; for anything with tomato or garlic doing real work, it disappears under the sauce.

Chickpea Pasta vs Lentil Pasta vs Brown Rice Pasta

The three major non-wheat pasta categories in the US grocery aisle, ranked by what they're best at:

• Chickpea pasta — highest protein (~20g per serving), highest fiber (~5g), densest bite. Best for satiety and macro-counting. Banza, Barilla Chickpea, Modern Table.
• Red lentil pasta — ~14g protein, slightly softer texture than chickpea, often a more orange color in the bowl. Barilla Red Lentil and Tolerant are the everyday lines. Cooks faster than chickpea (5-7 min vs 7-9).
• Brown rice pasta — ~7g protein (about the same as wheat), but the cleanest texture-match to wheat semolina of the three. Jovial and Tinkyada are the standards. The default if you want gluten-free without the bean flavor.
• All three are naturally gluten-free — no wheat, no rye, no cross-contaminated oats. Celiac-safe when the box carries a certified-GF label.
• All three cook on the same equipment as wheat pasta, in the same salted water, with the same drain-and-finish workflow.

Where to Find Chickpea Pasta in the US

Chickpea pasta is one of the few specialty noodle categories that's now genuinely mainstream. As of 2026:

• Whole Foods, Sprouts, Trader Joe's — Banza in nearly every shape (penne, rotini, rigatoni, elbows, spaghetti, mac-and-cheese boxes). Trader Joe's also runs a chickpea-blend store brand at $2.49 — Banza-quality at a meaningful discount.
• Costco — Banza family 6-packs at around $22, the cheapest per-box price in the US ($3.67/box). Stocked at most warehouses; rotates seasonally.
• Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons, Publix — Banza and Barilla Chickpea both standard. Barilla Red Lentil + Chickpea (the blended SKU) runs around $2.79.
• Target — Banza widely stocked; Modern Table (chickpea + lentil + rice blend) is the Target-exclusive line at $3.49.
• Walmart — Banza in most stores; Great Value chickpea elbows at $1.98 for the budget end.
• Amazon — multi-packs of Banza at $18-24 for 6 boxes; the best price outside Costco.

Cooking Chickpea Pasta at Home

The technique deviates from wheat pasta in two places. Get those right and the box performs:

• Water-to-pasta ratio: 4 quarts per pound (the same 4:1 you'd run for spaghetti). Crowded water clumps the strands and amplifies the starch problem.
• Salt: 1 tablespoon kosher per gallon, same as wheat.
• Time: 7-9 minutes for Banza penne. Pull at 7, taste at 8. Chickpea pasta has a narrower al dente window than wheat — overcook by a minute and it slides toward mushy fast.
• Rinse briefly before saucing — this is the inversion from wheat pasta orthodoxy. Chickpea releases enough surface starch to glue the strands together if you don't, especially for penne and rotini. A quick 10-second cold rinse, then straight into the sauce.
• Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water before draining. Even after the rinse, the residual starch in that water is the emulsifier that brings an oil-and-garlic sauce together.
• Finish in the pan. Sixty seconds in the sauce with a splash of the reserved water, off heat. This is where the bronze-die surface earns its keep.

What to Pair With Chickpea Pasta

Three sauce families work best — and one that doesn't:

• Mediterranean — olive oil, lemon, garlic, capers, parsley, a hit of red-pepper flakes. The chickpea base is already in the socca-and-hummus flavor world; lemon and olive oil are its native pairings. The dish many Banza loyalists default to.
• Italian-American red sauces — marinara, vodka sauce, arrabbiata, pesto. The tomato and basil run loud enough to mask any bean flavor, and the bronze-die surface grips the sauce visibly. Pesto with chickpea rotini is the sleeper combination.
• Cream-based and vegan-creamy — vegan alfredo (especially the cashew-and-nutritional-yeast version) leans on a chickpea-cream synergy that makes the bowl read richer than it is. Standard dairy alfredo also works.
• What doesn't: ultra-delicate butter-and-herb sauces or cacio e pepe. The chickpea flavor reads through and fights the cheese instead of disappearing under it. Use brown-rice pasta for those.

A Cultural Note

The category is genuinely new. Brian Rudolph and his brother Scott launched Banza in 2014 out of frustration — Rudolph wanted to keep eating Italian-American pasta while staying inside dietary constraints, and the gluten-free options on shelves in 2013 (mostly brown-rice and corn-based) had texture and flavor problems no sauce could fix. Their pitch on ABC's Shark Tank in 2017 failed to close a deal, but the exposure put Banza in front of national buyers; Whole Foods picked up the line that year and the trajectory bent up from there.

The Costco moment is the one that matters for mainstream adoption. Costco stocking Banza in 6-pack family bulk by 2020 meant suburban households outside the Whole Foods footprint were buying chickpea pasta for weeknight dinner — not as a specialty experiment but as the pantry default. The US gluten-free pasta category that barely existed in 2010 was a roughly $2 billion market by 2024, and Banza is responsible for most of the chickpea-specific share. The category isn't a niche anymore. It's a checkout-line staple.

See Best Gluten-Free Pasta.