• I recently tried all 10 of Olive Garden's pasta dinners and ranked them on taste and value.
• I liked almost all of the dishes, although overall, I found they were on the bland side.
• In my opinion, the best dish was the chicken-and-shrimp carbonara, which had the boldest flavor.

I recently tried the 10 pasta dinners available at Olive Garden and ranked them from my least favorite to my favorite.

Olive Garden, which has nearly 900 locations in the US, is known for its generous portions and decadent pastas, as well as its famous breadsticks. But with so many delicious-sounding pasta dishes on offer, where do you begin?

In a bid to narrow down the best items, I decided to taste all of the pasta-dinner options on the menu, and then I ranked them on taste and value.

I stuck to dinners only, which eliminated the spaghetti lunch options. I also limited it to dishes that are solely pasta dishes, which means I didn't try anything that came with a side of pasta, like chicken parmigiana, or anything that doesn't need pasta, like shrimp scampi.

That left me with 10 dishes: five types of Alfredo, lasagna, carbonara, stuffed shells, ziti, and ravioli.

Overall, I found that my Olive Garden experience was perfectly fine. Nothing was totally bursting with flavor, but nothing was particularly unpleasant either. I can understand why it's so popular around the country, as it's reasonably priced and dependable, and I get the sense that the chain is remarkably consistent.

My least favorite pasta was the chain's Lasagna Classico, which contains 940 calories and costs $17.99.

According to the Olive Garden website, the Lasagna Classico is made with "layers of pasta, Parmesan, mozzarella, pecorino Romano and our homemade meat sauce." The meat sauce contains sausage and beef.

In my opinion, the dish I got was a pretty mediocre lasagna. It seemed like a small portion, it wasn't very flavorful, and I didn't particularly enjoy the meat sauce, which I felt like it was drowning in.

Sorry Olive Garden, but lasagna is still best when it's homemade.

My second least favorite was the cheese ravioli. Olive Garden describes it as "indulgent," but that wasn't my experience.

The chain describes the cheese ravioli as being "filled with a blend of indulgent Italian cheeses." It comes with a choice of meat sauce or marinara sauce — personally, I don't like marinara sauce, so I went for the meat sauce again.

It'll set you back $15.79 and anywhere between 780 and 860 calories.

The cheese inside the ravioli is what sets this above the lasagna — as well as the lower price for more food — as I could barely taste any cheese in the lasagna due to the amount of meat sauce included. The ravioli had less sauce, which might be negative for some people, but I was able to taste the pasta more.

But even the best pasta with not much seasoning and a solidly average sauce can't top anyone's list of best pastas.

My least favorite of the five Alfredos I tried was the classic fettuccine Alfredo, but that's only because it didn't have the extra oomph that the other ones did.

Olive Garden has a whole section on its menu of "Amazing Alfredos," and this is their most basic offering, which is just fettuccine and Alfredo sauce, which the establishment makes in house with "Parmesan cheese, heavy cream, and garlic."

It's a whopping 1,310 calories and costs $15.79.

As the website points out, this is a staple for any picky eater. That was me as a kid, so I have eaten a lot of fettuccine Alfredo in my life. Olive Garden's is perfectly adequate, but it's hard to mess up cheese, cream, and pasta.

Next up was the five cheese ziti al forno, which contains 1,220 calories and costs $16.99.

The dish is made up of a " baked blend of Italian cheeses, pasta and our signature five cheese marinara" — it's Olive Garden's version of a baked ziti.

To me, it essentially tasted like penne alla vodka, a favorite of mine. However, the ziti were on the crunchier side, which I don't love, and once again, I thought it tasted bland.

Although I could see a sprinkling of parsley on top, this didn't translate to its taste, and I was left wondering: Where are the herbs and seasonings?

The seafood Alfredo was my second-to-last choice of the Alfredo dishes.

The seafood Alfredo is the classic Alfredo with the addition of shrimp and scallops. It's only 70 cents more than the shrimp Alfredo (which will come later) at $21.49, and it contains 1,430 calories.

Before looking into what exactly the seafood Alfredo was, I assumed it had more than just scallops and shrimp, since there's already a shrimp Alfredo ... and I was disappointed.

I don't think the scallops really added anything to the overall taste of the dish. When I cook scallops at home, I use garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil, and even just those four things give my home-cooked scallops way more flavor.

For that, it's ranked below the other two Alfredos, especially because it was the most expensive of the pastas.

The giant cheese-stuffed shells came in at No. 6.

The giant cheese-stuffed shells consist of "five shells filled with four-cheeses and topped with marinara, Alfredo and toasted breadcrumbs."

The marinara and the Alfredo sauces paired very well, as the Alfredo added some creaminess. I also thought the filling of the shells, the four-cheese blend, was much more flavorful and seasoned than the ravioli filling. I also appreciated the breadcrumbs adding a little crunch to the dish, instead of undercooked pasta.

The shells are 1,140 calories overall and cost $16.99.

The shrimp Alfredo is placed just above the stuffed shells in my book.

The shrimp Alfredo, which costs $20.79 and contains 1,450 calories, was a solid choice.

Even though the shrimp didn't seem to be seasoned at all, the natural shrimp flavor paired nicely with the Alfredo sauce — Olive Garden sure knows how to make a reliably tasty Alfredo. 

But I thought the best of all the Alfredos was easily the chicken Alfredo.

After I'd experienced three long days of trying various fettuccine Alfredos, the chicken Alfredo, which costs $18.99, was like a breath of fresh air.

The grilled chicken was well seasoned with pepper and other spices, and I thought it provided the best pairing with the pasta and the sauce. This fettuccine was also the softest — the other ones had the odd crunchy noodle here and there.

If I'm ever craving fettuccine Alfredo and need it ASAP, this is what I'll be ordering.

However, I felt all 1,570 calories — this is a heavy dinner. I definitely couldn't eat this more than once every six months. 

My runner-up for best pasta dinner at Olive Garden was the Asiago tortelloni Alfredo with grilled chicken.

The Asiago tortelloni Alfredo with grilled chicken offered the best of almost everything: the menu's tastiest protein (chicken), a solid sauce, and the best filling of all the pastas, the Asiago cheese.

The Asiago added a sharpness to the pasta that most of the other dishes were missing.

This dish was $20.99, and it has 1,980 calories — I felt like I was set for the rest of the day after eating a few bites.

But my favorite pasta was easily the chicken-and-shrimp carbonara.

The chicken-and-shrimp carbonara, as Olive Garden's website states, is "sautéed seasoned chicken, shrimp and spaghetti tossed in a creamy sauce with bacon and roasted red peppers."

It costs $20.79, putting it on more expensive side among the dishes I tried, and it has 1,390 calories.

The carbonara sauce was easily the best of all the sauces I tried — it wasn't too heavy, and I could taste the garlic, a staple of Italian cuisine. The roasted red peppers also gave the dish some much-needed dimension, and it was the only pasta dish to even include a vegetable.

Having both the chicken and shrimp was also tasty, and this chicken, as it states in the description, was sautéeed and seasoned, which came through in the taste — no wonder it's the only menu description to point it out. The spaghetti, by nature, is less filling than fettuccine and so I felt that the pasta wasn't overwhelming the rest of the dish.

Next time I go to Olive Garden, this is the pasta dish I'll be ordering.

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