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Two related tips while on the subject: 1) Salt your pasta water! Pasta is meant to be cooked in salty water that, according and excellently-put by Samin Nosr

• 4ggr0 4y ago
  > "is reminiscent of the sea" Had lots of funny moments in my life relating to salting pasta water. Almost all the people I know put like two pinches of salt into the water. Which causes them to look at me like I'm a psycho when I pour salt in for almost a full second, straight out of the container. I can +1 both of your tips, I follow them both since I learned to cook and they're a (small but effective) game-changer.
  • raldi 4y ago
    For our big pasta pot, I put in a literal handful.
    • 4ggr0 4y ago
      I can try to measure the amount I put in, but I'd guess it would be pretty close to a handful, yeah.
  • duped 4y ago
    I agree it's kind of absurd to "salt" your pasta water with a pinch of salt (you're doing nothing!), but for me it's a lot more efficient to let the sauce to have the saltiness than to waste handfuls of salt going into water that I'm going to dump out. INB4, "save your pasta water." I don't have a big kitchen or freezer, a pot full of water is a giant waste of space for me.
    • nameless912 4y ago
      Most people just dip a coffee mug in the pasta just before they drain it to keep some water back. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone freezing pasta water. As for "salty water vs. salty sauce", the better way from a culinary perspective is both. Over salting one thing to compensate for another thing often leads to uneven flavor; if everything is salted roughly appropriately it all kinda comes together without any extra effort. I suggest trying it, hell maybe even do an A/B test. It's subtle, but salt penetrating the pasta during cooking makes it taste that much better.
    • stephen_g 4y ago
      The thing about saving pasta water is about not throwing it all away when draining the pasta - just keeping a little back to toss in with the pasta and the sauce. It's not saving it for later.
    • gpderetta 4y ago
      Boil the water to evaporation and recover the salt! disclaimer: it might be /slightly/ energy inefficient. But salt your water, salting the sauce is just not the same.
    • bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
      The reason to salt the water is not to add saltiness to the pasta but to raise the water’s boiling point.
      • williamdclt 4y ago
        it's really not, it doesn't change the boiling point any sort of meaningfully.
    • williamdclt 4y ago
      - Lots of salt in the sauce means you'll have very salty sauce with undersalted pasta. It might work out fine if the sauce coats really well, but will still be slightly different. - Ingredients cook differently when salted. Not sure about pasta specifically: I _think_ I can taste a difference between pasta cooked in salted water and pasta salted after being cooked, but I'm not certain. - Definitely don't keep pasta water around, it's just for the sauce you're currently making
  • gpderetta 4y ago
    About as salty as the sea is also my rule of thumb (of course how salty is the sea you are familiar with varies :) )
    • williamdclt 4y ago
      Unless you really love salt, you want much less salinity in pasta than the sea (1-2% for pasta, 3.5% in the sea). Kenji Alt-Lopez says that you want your pasta water "as salty as you remember the sea is", not as salty as the sea actually is because it's way too much!
      • gpderetta 4y ago
        Maybe it is not exactly as salty as the sea :)
    • themeiguoren 4y ago
      If you’ve ever been at sea and tried to use seawater to cook pasta, you’ll realize that it’s too much salt. 1:1 seawater to fresh water turns out perfect (and saves your fresh water).
• williamdclt 4y ago
  Some more pasta water insights: - A good ratio of salt/water is one tablespoon per litre (or gallon). Reduce if the sauce is going to be very salty already (eg carbonara). We're talking kosher salt here (specifically Diamon Crystal), if using table salt it's probably going to be half of that: salt density varies a lot depending on the type. - Cook your pasta is _as little_ water as possible. For some reason there's some myth that you want to cook pasta in a large volume of water: that's BS. What makes pasta water "liquid gold" is the starch that comes from the pasta, you want that as concentrated as possible.
  • Spivak 4y ago
    Oh god please don't to 1 TB of salt per gallon you need way more. I would do 4TB because although it's more than 1% salt it's easy to remember and close enough. As long as you stay less than 2% you're probably good for average salt tolerance.
    • cossatot 4y ago
      I think he meant ‘quart’ rather than ‘gallon’ because the first reference is for ‘litre’
    • williamdclt 4y ago
      Sorry yes! As cossatot points out in the sibling comment, I meant quart. Not used to american metrics.
  • CBLT 4y ago
    +1 to the as little water as possible tip, that's worked well for me. The emulsifying properties transmit flavors really well, I like to infuse a tiny bit of oil to stir in.
  • dfxm12 4y ago
    A good ratio of salt/water is one tablespoon per litre (or gallon) A gallon is 3.5-4 litres. This doesn't seem right. Cook your pasta is _as little_ water as possible. This advice is worthless without some baseline like g of pasta to l water or how much water to cover your pasta with. You should cook your pasta in a large volume of water so the water will still be hot when you add the pasta and the pasta will be cooked as quickly as possible. Too little water and you risk the pasta sticking to itself as well. All this in mind, properly cooked pasta with diluted pasta water is a better outcome than starchy pasta water with pasta that has an odd texture. Maybe that last bit is personal preference, but when eating pasta, the first thing I notice is the texture of the pasta, not the starchiness of the pasta water. Hell, maybe we're thinking about the same amount of water, and you've just seen people try to cook with comically large amounts, I dunno.
• Vinnl 4y ago
  What does salting your pasta water do, other than aligning with how it was "meant to be"? I've never noticed a difference, but also didn't salt it that extensively, and this was years ago.
  • michaelchisari 4y ago
    You need to salt it enough that the pasta itself becomes salty. So the sauce you use doesn't have to have much salt, a pinch or two, and the pasta carries the saltiness instead.
  • muzani 4y ago
    Without salt, the pasta tastes plain. You can't really make up for it by salting the sauce more, the pasta carries it better. And in dishes with less salt, you'd normally salt the pasta and not the sauce.
    • Vinnl 4y ago
      Ah OK, so the same reason I use salt elsewhere - I thought it might affect the cooking process somehow. Any idea why the pasta carries it better? I usually add it to the sauce, the idea being both that I need to use less salt (healthier), and that it interacts with the herbs I added to the sauce.
  • ghostpepper 4y ago
    It makes the pasta salty. It's not just pasta - almost any dish will be better if you salt/season as you go instead of adding it on top at the end
    • leephillips 4y ago
      Also the water will boil at a higher temperature. I wonder if this affects the texture of the pasta. I suppose it will cook somewhat faster.
      • halkony 4y ago
• mattrighetti 4y ago
  1a) Salt your water when it reaches boiling temperature, then put pasta in it.
• kristjansson 4y ago
  Not sure who said it, but I've had the advice "enough salt to scare your guests" in my head for years. Adding the salt after the water boils is also very, very satisfying.
• antognini 4y ago
  Pasta water should be "as salty as tears."