How to Cook Dried Pasta Properly: The Water, the Salt, the Timing and the Cup You Save
Dried pasta asks for one pot of water and about ten minutes, which is why most people have never thought hard about it, and why most pasta is cooked slightly wrong in four small ways. The water is undersalted, so the pasta tastes of nothing and the sauce has to do all the work. The pasta is cooked to the number on the box, which is a guess about your stove and your altitude. It is drained until dry, throwing away the starchy water that would have bound the sauce. And it is sauced on the plate rather than in the pan, so the two never quite become one dish. None of this is difficult to fix. Here is the method, the reason for each step, and the correction that a kitchen a mile above sea level needs. For which shape to cook, our shapes guide is the companion; for why a rough bronze-die pasta behaves differently in this method, the bronze-die guide explains.
The water
The old rule of a gallon per pound is generous but not wrong; what matters is that the pasta can move and that the water comes back to the boil quickly after the pasta goes in. Four to five quarts for a pound is plenty. Less water than that, about three quarts, works for short shapes and gives you starchier water for the sauce, which some cooks prefer; less than that and long shapes clump. Bring it to a full rolling boil before the pasta goes in, and cover the pot while it heats, which shortens the time to boil.
The salt
This is the step that decides whether the pasta tastes of anything. Pasta absorbs water as it cooks, and if the water is seasoned, the pasta is seasoned through; if it is not, no amount of salt on the plate reaches the inside. The Italian phrase is that the water should taste of the sea, which is an exaggeration, since seawater is about 3.5 percent salt and would be inedible. The right range is one percent, which is 10 grams of salt per liter of water, or about 1 tablespoon of fine sea salt per quart. That is more than most people use, and it is correct.
The complication is that salts differ in grain size, so a spoon of one is not a spoon of another; our salting guide covers the physics. The table settles it for pasta water.
| Water | Salt by weight (1%) | Fine sea salt or table salt | Morton kosher | Diamond Crystal kosher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 quart (about 1 liter) | 10 g | 1 3/4 tsp | 2 tsp | 1 tbsp + 1/2 tsp |
| 4 quarts (about 4 liters) | 40 g | 2 tbsp + 1 tsp | 2 tbsp + 2 tsp | 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp |
| 5 quarts (about 5 liters) | 50 g | 3 tbsp | 3 tbsp + 1 tsp | 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp |
Add the salt when the water boils, not before; it makes no difference to the pasta and it keeps the salt from sitting on the bottom of a cold pot. Taste the water once. It should be noticeably salty, about like a well-seasoned soup. Then trust it.
No oil
Oil in the water does nothing to stop sticking, because it floats, and it coats the pasta as you drain it so that sauce slides off. Stir the pasta in the first minute instead, which is when it sticks, and keep the water at a real boil, which keeps it moving.
The timing
The number on the box is the manufacturer's estimate for a full boil at sea level, and it is a starting point rather than an instruction. Set a timer for two minutes less than the box says, and from then on the tooth decides. Fish out a piece, bite it, and look at the cross-section: a thin white line of uncooked starch at the center is the sign of al dente, "to the tooth," which is what you want at the moment you pull the pasta, because it will cook for another minute or two in the pan with the sauce. If the center is uniformly translucent, it is done and will be slightly soft by the plate. If there is a thick white core, it needs another minute. Bronze-die pasta, with its thicker rough wall, usually needs the full box time or a minute more; smooth extruded pasta runs faster.
The cup you save
Before you drain, dip a measuring cup into the pot and take out a cup or two of cooking water. It looks like nothing; it is the most useful liquid in the kitchen. Dried pasta sheds starch into the water as it cooks, and that starch is an emulsifier: whisked into a pan of olive oil, butter, cheese or tomato, it turns fat and water into a sauce that clings to the pasta instead of pooling underneath it. Every Italian sauce that seems to need cream, from cacio e pepe to aglio e olio, is really pasta water doing that job. Save more than you think you need. What you do not use goes down the sink; what you needed and did not save cannot be recovered.
Drain wet, finish in the pan
Drain the pasta quickly, without shaking it dry and never rinsing it, which washes off the starch you just went to the trouble of keeping. Move it straight into the pan where the sauce is waiting over medium heat, with a splash of the cooking water, and toss for a minute or two until the sauce tightens around the pasta and the water has been absorbed. This last step, the mantecatura, is where a plate of pasta with sauce on it becomes a dish. If the pan looks dry, add water a spoon at a time; if it looks wet, keep tossing. The right finish is glossy and clings, with almost nothing left in the pan.
The mistakes, in order of damage
Undersalting, which cannot be fixed later. Cooking to the box time without tasting, which overcooks bronze-die pasta and undercooks nothing. Throwing away the water. Rinsing. Oiling the water. Saucing on the plate. Cooking a pound of pasta in a small pot, which drops the temperature, gums the water and glues the pasta. Adding the pasta before the boil. Every one is common and every one is a small fix.
At altitude
In Denver, water boils at about 202°F rather than 212°F, and pasta cooks in cooler water. It takes longer, often a minute or two more than the box, and it is easier to end up with a chalky center on a thick shape. Use plenty of water so the pot recovers its boil quickly after the pasta goes in, keep the lid on until it does, start tasting at the box time rather than before it, and expect to save a little extra cooking water, since more evaporates. Our altitude guide has the physics and the rest of the corrections.
The method, on one card
- Four to five quarts of water per pound, lid on, full rolling boil.
- Salt at one percent: 40 to 50 grams, about 3 tablespoons of fine salt. Taste it.
- Pasta in, stir for the first minute, keep the boil going. No oil.
- Timer at two minutes under the box time; sea level. At the box time in Denver.
- Taste for a thin white line at the center. Pull it there.
- Save two cups of cooking water.
- Drain wet, straight into the sauce pan, toss with a splash of water until glossy.
- Plate. Eat immediately; pasta waits for no one.
The pasta, the salt and the olive oil are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. The recipes that use this method, starting with orecchiette with broccoli rabe, are in The Pantry Kitchen.
