Get your spaghetti doneness right with this simple, non-messy approach that actually works! This article was sponsored by PUR®, and all opinions are my own.
I’ve always struggled to determine when the spaghetti is done. So I’d guess. On one occasion, I’d cook the spaghetti for 8 minutes. On another, 10 minutes. It was like spaghetti roulette.
You don’t need any tools to install one. Using the convenient adapters in the box, I was able to get it up and running in just 5 minutes.
To ensure that my water is clean and delicious, I use a PUR Advanced water filter. I adore that they are certified to reduce the chlorine in your water, eliminating that taste of bleach and improving the flavor of both your water and your spaghetti.
I made a New Year’s resolution this year to only use filtered water in my home, including when I’m cooking.
How to Know When Spaghetti is Done
The cooking instructions on the box for most dried pasta may give you a good idea of how long it will take to cook the pasta to the right al dente texture, but the only accurate way to determine when pasta is done is to try some and see if it is the right tenderness. When you believe it is nearly finished, you must be patient and test it a few times. Remember to cook the pasta slightly less than you desire it if you intend to toss it in the sauce, and then allow it to finish cooking in the sauce.
I’ve discovered that lifting pasta out of the water works best for “draining” pasta. However you choose to drain it, keep a small amount of the pasta water on hand to add to the pasta and sauce mixture if additional moisture is required to either finish the pasta (the pasta may require additional water to absorb) or adjust the sauce’s thickness.
One of the first foods many Americans learn to prepare is pasta. Of course, there are subtleties to the art of making and cooking pasta that you may not fully appreciate in the beginning. But when I was a teenager and just wanted something quick and simple to eat while studying, I always chose the macaroni and cheese box or the spaghetti with jarred sauce.
This move is especially effective when used with tube pasta, such as ziti or rigatoni, but it also works reasonably well with other types of pasta. I recently discovered there were no timers on the box of some pasta I had splurged on while visiting a fancy Italian grocery store. I was still able to fairly easily determine when the pasta reached the ideal consistency between too firm and too mushy thanks to the old cutting-in-half trick. And there isn’t any wall-sticking involved, which is in my opinion a win all around.
You’ll probably notice a ring of pasta inside that is lighter in color than the rest of the noodle when you do. That part is the uncooked pasta. A ring will be less cooked the thicker it is. There should be a thin ring of that lighter color inside al dente pasta. Look for a thicker ring if you prefer your pasta slightly less cooked than al dente. If the pasta is fully cooked, there should be no ring at all.
However, even if you’ve cooked pasta for a while, you might find it difficult to determine when it’s done to your preferences without the aid of the timing on the box. Many pasta recipes call for pasta to be partially cooked through in boiling water and then transferred to finish cooking in the sauce. This technique combines the flavors of the pasta and sauce and also adds some of that sweet, sweet, starchy pasta water.
Don’t throw the noodles at the wall—that sounds messy—but how can you tell how far along your noodles are in the cooking process? You can use a quick trick that won’t require you to bite into a piece of hot, slightly raw rigatoni. Simply fish out one of your noodles carefully from the pasta pot and cut it in half.
FAQ
How long do spaghetti noodles take to cook?
The majority of dried pasta ribbons, including linguine, spaghetti, and tagliatelle, require 8 to 10 minutes to cook. Fresh pasta varieties like ravioli and tortellini take between 3 and 5 minutes to cook, while shorter, thicker pasta shapes like bows or penne take 10 to 12 minutes.
How do you tell if your spaghetti is perfectly done using just a simple ruler?
“If you prefer your al dente pasta to be on the firmer side, use a stick length of 30 millimeters.” This translates to roughly 18 millimeters if you prefer it to be softer. Enlarge / (a) Proposed experimental setup for estimating cooked pasta texture indirectly by determining stick length
