5 tips you never knew about cooking pasta

Pasta is a versatile food. Whether it is pasta salad, noodle soup, or tomato pasta, almost everyone loves pasta. While most people don’t give much thought to boiling pasta, boiling perfect pasta is a lot more complicated than it seems. Here are five tips that will take your pasta to the next level.

Tips:

1. Bring your water to a rolling boil: Bringing your water to a rolling boil is a simple tip that can help you get the fluffiest pasta. The quickest way to achieve a rolling boil is by putting your pot of water on the stove and setting the heat to high. The water is at a rolling boil when it is bubbling up and the water is moving in waves.
2. Add celtic sea salt to pasta water: After your pasta water is at a rolling boil, immediately add about ½ – 1 tsp of celtic sea salt. Don’t add the salt before boiling your water because salt water takes longer to come to a roaring boil. This tip will help you get the most flavorful and fluffy pasta. 
3. Add a wooden spoon to your pasta water so the water doesn’t boil out: After adding the salt, immediately add your pasta (make sure not to overcrowd the water with too much pasta). Next, leave a wooden spoon in the pot to prevent the water from boiling over and leaving a mess.
4. Drain pasta into a pot not the sink: To drain the pasta more safely, you can place a strainer over an empty pot and drain the pasta into there so you don’t have to hold the strainer with one hand and hold the pot of pasta with your other hand. Also, this allows you to save the creamy pasta water that can later be used to thin down the pasta sauce you use.
5. Cover pasta after straining it: After straining the pasta, make sure to quickly cover with a lid. I use a glass or steel lid for this. The lid prevents the pasta from losing its moisture and drying out. This is especially helpful if your pasta is done boiling before you have finished making the sauce or cooking your vegetables.