Making Your Pasta Water Work for You
Don’t throw that pasta water down the drain! Here are a few tips for making the most of it before and after cooking your pasta.
Get it on the Boil Early
When cooking at home, grab the pasta pot, fill it with tap water, and put it on the stove to boil before you even start prepping other ingredients. Getting the pasta water to a boil definitely helps get dinner on the table faster—there’s nothing worse than dead time when you have everything ready to go but you’re waiting for the water to come to a boil. You know what they say about a watched pot…
Salt it for Real
“Salty like the sea” may sound corny, but it’s accurate; once it comes to a boil, add plenty of salt to the pasta cooking water to properly season the pasta as it cooks. Salting the pasta only at the end will make the seasoning taste superficial, because it is superficial—it doesn’t get absorbed by the noodles as they cook. We like a ratio of 4 quarts of water to 1 tablespoon table salt (or 2 tablespoons kosher salt). And please, don’t put oil in the pasta cooking water; it does not help prevent the pasta from sticking to itself. A good hard boil and proper stirring, especially at the start of cooking, are what prevent the pasta from sticking to itself as it cooks.
Blanch Vegetables in the Water
Making a pasta that features green beans, corn, peas, spinach, broccoli, etc.? You can blanch (quickly boil) these vegetables right in the seasoned pasta water. You can add quick cooking vegetables like green peas to the water when the pasta is almost done and drain the pasta and peas together before saucing. With vegetables that need a little more time, like broccoli or broccolini, you can blanch and remove them before the pasta goes in, then add them back when you’re saucing the pasta.
Add Cooking Water to Drained Pasta—and Stir
Pasta contains a lot of starch, and some of it ends up in the cooking water, making that cooking water a smart (free, seasoned, flavor neutral) thickener for pasta sauces. Adding a bit of the cooking water to the drained pasta is good, but giving it a firm stir—sometimes a few minutes of vigorous stirring—can help that starchy water emulsify into the sauce creating a "creaminess" that coats and clings to the noodles. Pretty much any sauce can benefit from a splash of pasta water, but some, like our pasta aglio e olio and pasta alla gricia—are actually built entirely on pasta water.
