The first thing that you need to know is that it is not pasta and will never taste exactly like pasta. Palmini is 100% made out of Hearts of Palm, so if you eat it straight out of the can it will taste like Hearts of Palm (texture will be softer) That being said, if you let Palmini sit in your choice of milk and add a sauce, you can make Palmini taste very similar to regular pasta. Prepared with a regular pasta sauce and properly rinsed, the resemblance to regular pasta is remarkable. So much that some people actually believe that they are eating pasta