Should you rinse pasta?
You are rinsing liquid gold when you rinse your pasta, so the answer to this question is always no if you are Italian!
Why you should never, ever rinse your Italian pasta (gluten-free pasta is an exception):
- Because of the starch in the water, the sauce coats your pasta better and tastes even better.
- Rinsing the pasta will cool it down and stop your sauce from soaking into it. Instead:
- Place your prepared sauce in a warmed saucepan and toss with the hot, drained pasta. The sauce will cling to the starchy pasta’s heat and do a happy dance!
This Marinara Sauce Recipe for pasta sauce is another one you might like!
HOW long to cook pasta al dente
Preheat a large pot of heavily salted water (do not add oil), measure your ingredients, stir, and set a timer for two to three minutes earlier than suggested on the package.
When the cooking time is almost up, make sure the pasta is cooked through by tasting it. It might take a few more minutes, or it might be done sooner than you thought. Mangia! (Eat!).
How do you boil Spaghetti?
Here’s a quick guide that walks you through the best pasta-cooking techniques. See headings for details and explanations of each step.
The best method for cooking spaghetti pasta:
- Start with a large pot of COLD water. The additional minerals in hot water from the faucet can harm pots and change their flavor.
- Boil water in a large pot (I use this one) and cook pasta. This makes room for the long pasta (although short pasta can still benefit from this generalization).
- Make sure you have plenty of water in the pot. Why? Because while it’s cooking, your pasta needs somewhere to swim and move around.
- To flavor pasta from the inside out, it is an Italian MUST to generously salt the water used to make pasta. Before adding any sauce, you want the pasta to taste good enough to detect seasoning on its own.
- Prior to adding the pasta or spaghetti, bring the water to a rolling boil.
- Using the appropriate tool, stir occasionally to prevent the pasta from sticking. Don’t just dump and run :). Use a back-and-forth motion in the pot to stir spaghetti until it softens and begins to float freely in the water (see photos below).
- Test the pasta two minutes before it’s “al dente”.
- Save a scoop of pasta water. Another Italian secret!
- Drain, toss with sauce, and serve hot!
(Short pasta varieties can also be prepared using this method; a smaller pot may be needed.)
