The Major Frozen Pasta Recall That Affected Multiple Brands

Pasta seems like a pretty benign food, but it can be surprisingly dangerous. In one tragic incident, a 20-year-old Belgian man died from eating cooked pasta that was kept for too long at room temperature. The proper way to store both pasta and cooked rice – both of which can be breeding grounds for the deadly Bacillus cereus toxin — is to refrigerate them within two hours of preparation. You should also keep your cooked pasta in the fridge for no longer than four to five days.

So, is the only risk from home-cooked pasta? Unfortunately, this isn't the case, since there have been numerous store-bought pasta recalls that have affected millions. One major recall by the Nestlé company in 2016 affected two different pasta brands: Lean Cuisine spinach artichoke ravioli, ricotta and spinach ravioli, and mushroom mezzaluna were pulled from the market along with Stouffer's chicken and vegetable lasagnas. In addition to the pasta meals, several pizza products (DiGiorno Thin & Crispy spinach and garlic, rising crust spinach and mushroom, thin crust spinach and mushroom, and Tuscan-style chicken and Lean Cuisine's spinach and mushroom) were also recalled, as was Lean Cuisine's spinach, artichoke, and chicken panini and Stouffer's spinach soufflé.

The reason for the recall involved the spinach contained in all of these products. This vegetable, which all came from one grower, seemed to have been contaminated with small pieces of glass. Luckily, no injuries were reported, but Nestlé took a hit equivalent to the profit on three million meals.

When Nestlé issued that 2016 recall on pasta and other spinach-containing products, it wasn't the company's first rodeo. In 2014, the company pulled a noodle dish called Lean Cuisine Culinary Collection chicken with peanut sauce because some of the packages instead contained shrimp alfredo, and shrimp is a known allergen. In 2020, it had to recall about 29,002 pounds of Lean Cuisine fettuccini alfredo due to the presence of soy, another allergen that was not disclosed on the packaging.

More recently, a March 2025 recall again affected Lean Cuisine and Stouffer's pasta products. The items involved were Lean Cuisine butternut squash ravioli, spinach artichoke ravioli, and Stouffer's party-size chicken lasagna. The rice-based Lean Cuisine lemon garlic shrimp stir fry was also part of the recall. The problem this time around was similar to that of the 2016 incident, only in this case, the foreign matter present in some of the frozen meals was described as being wood-like. In this case, at least one person actually ingested the substance and experienced some choking as a result. To date, however, there have been no reports of other injuries, and we hope this will continue to be the case.