According to Harold McGee, there’s a better way. This technique does require a lot of stirring to keep the pasta from sticking, so you won't want to go wandering off while it cooks. Pasta mavens know that boiling pasta to just al dente and then finishing the cooking in the sauce can do two things: The starch from the clinging (or added) pasta water helps thicken the sauce; meanwhile, hydrating the last of the dry pasta with sauce infuses some of the saucy goodness into the pasta itself. We use a lot of water in the kitchen. There is not a pot of water requiring the energy to boil. The method works by putting uncooked pasta directly in a pot of simmering sauce, topping it with just enough water to cover (which is significantly less than a whole pot, obviously) and allowing the pasta to cook in the sauce. By some accounts, a family of four uses 100 gallons of water a year just for cooking pasta. So doing this method should save at least a quart of water and a bit of time. Writes Tamarkin: “I still found myself heating up big pots of water for pasta. About 1 tablespoon of olive oil or butter. There is not a pot of water requiring the energy to boil. Get daily tips and expert advice to help you take your cooking skills to the next level. Add 1 pound of uncooked pasta to the salted water. When softened, you won’t need … Drain the remaining water, toss pasta with olive oil or butter and serve with your desired sauce. But I also had a nagging voice in my head that this would be somehow incorrect – that even if it worked, the great Italian cooks of yore would start spinning in their graves.”. How do you cook pasta? A soup pot or stockpot wide enough to accommodate the length of your pasta. However, Simplemost may receive a small commission from the purchase of any products or services through an affiliate link to the retailer's website. By using The Spruce Eats, you accept our, Spicy Spaghetti With Garlic and Olive Oil, Greek Pastitsio: Baked Pasta With Meat and Béchamel, Garlic Spaghetti (Spaghetti Aglio e Olio), How to Cook Pasta for Perfect Results Every Time, How to Make Tomato Sauce From Fresh Tomatoes, A Guide to Making Pasta in Your Home Kitchen. There is not a pot of water that gets dumped down the drain. If everyone in the U.S. applied this method, we could, astonishingly, save billions of gallons of water. Turn on the heat and immediately add the pasta (don’t wait for it to boil). Weekly Horoscope: Good Omens, Good Luck, And Good Vibes. Considering that on average, a resident of sub-Saharan Africa uses 2 to 5 gallons of water per day, 100 gallons is a lot of water to be dumping through the colander. For other pasta shapes, like shells or macaroni, you can lift the cooked pasta out of the water using a ravioli skimmer (compare prices). Or you can use the thickened pasta water as a sauce (see below). They went on to experiment with using no water at all, and voila, they could. But you can also make a sauce from the pasta liquid—just add a little bit of butter or olive oil to it, ladle it over the pasta and serve. There is not a pot of water that gets dumped down the drain. There are more efficient ways to cook pasta besides dropping it into a big pot of boiling, salted water. The products and services mentioned below were selected independent of sales and advertising. Well, kind of. Basically the same idea, Martha-approved. Plus, pasta cooked using this technique actually makes its own sauce. Bring the water to a boil, stirring the noodles frequently so they don't stick together. Continue cooking this way until the pasta is al dente. Fill a broad-bottomed stock pot with 2 quarts of cold water. Probably just like the Italians do…the old fashioned way. If you want to use the pasta water, instead of draining it you can use a pair of tongs to remove the cooked pasta—assuming you're cooking long pasta noodles. Food Network's Alton Brown has some tricks up his sleeves in the kitchen, including a hack for cooking the perfect pasta.. In a 2015 blog post, Brown said he prefers the texture of dry pasta when it starts off in cold water, adding that when it comes to the amount of water needed to cook shorter pasta shapes "like farfalle, macaroni and rigatoni, less is definitely more." You'll use less energy this way, too, because the smaller amount of water comes to a boil much more quickly. There is not … You need to start by selecting the correct sized pan. Add 2 teaspoons of Kosher salt. The method works by putting uncooked pasta directly in a pot of simmering sauce, topping it with just enough water to cover (which is significantly less than a whole pot, obviously) and allowing the pasta to cook in the sauce. The Spruce Eats uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. Here's How Fill a broad-bottomed stock pot with 2 quarts of cold water. But pasta – how to handle something of which a giant vat of boiling water is part and parcel? Dump a few quarts of water, a pinch of salt, wait ten or so minutes for the water to boil. I personally recommend a 5-quart sauté pan. By cooking the pasta entirely in the sauce, you end up with a beautifully thick sauce and a noodle with added flavor. There is not an extra pot that requires washing. The extra water steams off, the pasta is cooked. After some adventures with the Epicurious test kitchen, it was confirmed that less water worked, but why stop there? Add 2 teaspoons of. I’d read somewhere – perhaps this New York Times piece that Harold McGee wrote in 2009 – that pasta could be cooked in significantly less water. Not only does this method make your pasta taste better than the traditional way, if everyone in the United States tried this, we’d save billions of gallons of water. With tongs, move the pasta back & forth so it doesn’t stick together. The traditional way of cooking pasta calls for 6 quarts of water per pound of pasta, but if you're willing to do some stirring, you can make pasta with just a fraction of the water. Get out a large pot. Danilo Alfaro has published more than 800 recipes and tutorials focused on making complicated culinary techniques approachable to home cooks. With tongs, move the pasta back & forth so it doesn’t stick together. It just might be the most frugal recipe of all time! I have this one and use it almost everyday. After a few experiments, he’s found a way to cook pasta faster, and with less water, saving time and energy in the kitchen. The starchiness of the leftover pasta water makes it great for adjusting the consistency of whatever sauce you're using. Copyright © Simplemost, All Rights Reserved. Then drop in the pasta. The pan should be big enough so the pasta can lay flat and “swim” around a bit when it’s softened. When softened, you won’t need to do this as much. Sign-up to get a daily batch of tips, tricks, and smiles to, Pringles Is Releasing 3 New Scorching-Hot Chip Flavors, Chocolate Spice Banana Bread Is A New Version To Bake For Fall, Buy Harry Potter Butterbeer-Flavored Peanut Butter, Tune Into A Virtual Dolly Parton Christmas Concert To Get Into The Holiday Spirit, Alex Trebek Recorded Enough New ‘Jeopardy!’ Episodes To Run Through Christmas Day. Make sure your pot is wide enough to accommodate the length of your. With Americans consuming approximately 1.9 million tons of pasta each year (the average person yearly consumes 15 1/2 pounds of pasta), this could save a lot of water! I really love this method for the reasons above, but also for a selfish reason: It makes pasta taste better, in my opinion. In a series of tests, they found that a pound of pasta, which is typically cooked in roughly five quarts of water, cooked just as well in half that amount. In a quest to decrease his own water footprint in the kitchen, David Tamarkin at Epicurious started experimenting with less water-intensive cooking methods, like steaming things instead of boiling them. And Tamarkin and I aren’t the only ones who promote the concept: Martha Stewart’s one-pot pasta recipe instructs one to throw all of the sauce ingredients, along with the uncooked pasta, in a pot and cook until the water is absorbed.