Trader Joe's Organic Black Bean Rotini

Foods that are supposed to be black: Well, there's not many. The seared outside of my steak. Black jelly beans (my favorite). Black olives. Black mission figs. And that's about all I can come up with. Oh, Oreos.

But foods that aren't: Much easier. The inside of my steak. Toast. Eggs. Milk. Easter ham. And the list could go on and on....

...and at some point, it would probably involve pasta. Black pasta? That's, well, unusual, and sounds like some sort of joke gone wrong.

Until now. There's Trader Joe's Organic Black Bean Rotini, made only out of black bean flour. I wasn't even aware that black bean flour was a thing, but well, I've been wrong before.

Spoiler alert: These spirally noodles taste 100% identical to black beans. I mean, perhaps a little beanier, in some ways, because there's probably some magical ratio of 10 beans to each one noodle. But there's no mistaking the taste, these are very strictly black beans in pasta form...by what kind of wizardry is that even possible? What a crazy world we live in.

If you take a look at the picture we snapped of them, you can probably imagine the texture a little bit as well. Probably the first thing I noticed is these noodles were noticeably drier than most of their somewhat distant semolina brethren.  This wasn't just on the surface, where they didn't seem to retain moistness as well as regular noodles, but also carried through in the bite, contributing to a grainier, perhaps slightly chewier mouthfeel. Which makes sense - I mean, it's beans in some sort of condensed form - and with that expectation in mind, it wasn't completely unwelcome. But I can understand it being a little offsetting for some.

Eating them straight, I didn't particularly care for them...but black beans to me are more of an accompaniment dish instead of main feature. So instead, we made them up for some taco pasta which was a great idea - the flavor played perfectly into the rest of the dish. Which brings up a good point - I'm not entirely sure I'd eat these noodles straight up with some marinara or whatever else traditional pasta flavors, just because they are too strongly beany.

Sandy and I enjoyed them and will probably pick them up again, but these legumey linguinis probably won't be our new normal. There was just a little bit too much resistance from the kiddos about these, partially because our 3.5 year old M was disappointed to find out they weren't chocolate like she so desperately hoped for. Anyways, we're both hovering around a 3, but I'll toss in some bonus pointage for novelty and innovation.


Bottom line: Trader Joe's Organic Black Bean Rotini: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons