Salt the pasta water
Pasta swells as it cooks, so salt in the water ends up inside the noodles. Use about 1 to 2 teaspoons per liter. Salt added to the sauce later only seasons the outside.
Save a cup of pasta water
Scoop out a cup of pasta water before draining. Its starch thickens the sauce and helps the fat and water in it blend, so the sauce coats the pasta instead of pooling. Add it a splash at a time.
What salt doesn't do
Salt barely changes the boil: 1 tablespoon in 4 liters raises the boiling point about 0.1°C. It doesn't stop sticking either. For that, use plenty of water and stir during the first minute.
Test yourself
Questions from the interactive lesson, with the answer and the why.
You salt your sauce well but cook the pasta in plain water. Why does the dish still taste flat?
Pasta absorbs salt only while it cooks. Swelling noodles take in the salty water. Sauce only coats the outside.
True or false: Salting pasta water raises its boiling point enough to cook pasta much faster.
False. A tablespoon of salt in 4 liters raises the boiling point by about 0.1°C, which is far too little to matter.
What went wrong? You forget to salt the boiling water and sprinkle salt on the cooked pasta instead. The noodles still taste bland inside.
The salt only coated the outside. Salt added after cooking sits on the surface instead of seasoning the noodle through.
Fill the blank: Noodles swell as they cook, so salt in the water seasons them ___.
Noodles swell as they cook, so salt in the water seasons them through. The noodle absorbs salty water as it swells, so salt gets inside.
A pasta sauce of oil and cheese is slippery and pools at the bottom of the pan. What fixes it?
A splash of starchy pasta water. Starch thickens the sauce and helps fat and water blend, so it clings.
Fill the blank: Splashing starchy pasta water into a sauce helps it ___ to the noodles.
Splashing starchy pasta water into a sauce helps it cling to the noodles. Starch thickens the sauce so it clings to the noodles.
Salted vs plain pasta water
Two pots, one very obvious difference.
Do the 20-minute experiment
