Tips on how to cook pasta

Tips

 * Add salt to the boiling water. Salt enhances the pasta flavor and allows the sauce flavor to "blend" better.
 * Different pastas cook for varying times. Thin linguine, for example, cooks much faster than rigatoni.
 * When your pasta is ready, the outer edges will begin to lighten in color.
 * Some people prefer to rinse their pasta in the colander to wash away the starches. Do not do this! In addition to the sauce adhering better because of the starch, if you rinse it, you will be cooling the pasta before you add the sauce. Instead, drain the pasta, add it back into the pot you cooked it, turn on the heat and add the sauce, stirring until well-mixed and hot. The pasta will be thoroughly coated by the sauce and the pasta will stay hot when you serve it.
 * Use plenty of water. The most common cause of "sticky" pasta is cooking with too little water. Use at least 4 quarts of water for each pound of pasta (4 liters for each one-half kilogram). No oil or other additives are required.
 * If you make spaghetti and they are not submerged at beginning, do not break them. Wait 30 seconds and gently use your fork to bend them and submerge them.
 * Italians adopt a "leave it alone" or "don't mess with it" policy when cooking pasta. Don't agitate or stir it too much. This goes for the sauce as well.
 * Add some of the pasta water to your sauce. If you're making your own sauce, add a bit of the water used to cook the pasta if you need to adjust its thickness. The dissolved starches will thicken and enrich its texture. Note that the "right" amount varies according to recipe, batch size, and preference.
 * Benefits of spaghetti: it is easy to make, time efficient, (can be) healthy, and can be made with any kind of vegetables, sauce, noodles, and source of protein, whether it be ground beef, ground chicken, tofu, or ground pork.
 * You don't have to eat plain old pasta and sauce! Add your own spices to it, whether it's Make Simple Meatballs or herbs.

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