How to Cook Perfect Pasta

Whether you are of Italian ethnicity or not, pasta is enjoyed by every one of different backgrounds and cultures. Pasta is featured in a lot of dishes such as pasta salad, spaghetti and meatballs, baked ziti, lasagna, and the most popular comfort food of all time, Mac & Cheese. It also comes in many different shapes, sizes, forms, and colors.  How pasta is cooked can make a big difference on how it tastes. As simple as it looks, getting the right texture can be challenging. When not cooked right, pasta is vulnerable for either being undercooked or overcooked. If you don’t follow the cooking techniques to the letter of the law, you basically ruined your entire dinner. So what is the secret to cooking perfect pasta? Below are some tips that can help achieve your goal in cooking pasta the way it should be cooked:

Salt your water

The only opportunity you will have to flavor your pasta is right at the beginning of the cooking process. Add a tablespoon of salt to a boiling pot of pasta water. The salt will infuse into the pasta as it cooks and is the first step in cooking perfect pasta.

Ditch the oil

It's not necessary to add any oil to your pasta water. It will just float on the top anyway. And when you go to drain your pasta, you'll just end up dumping the oil down the drain. Salt is all you really need for cooking pasta.

Use boiling water

The most common crime of poorly-cooked pasta offenders is that they put pasta into warm or even cold water This will almost guarantee that your pasta is sticky. Your water must be boiling. Period. This part of the cooking process cannot be rushed. Put the pot of water on high and wait for the tell-tale bubbles.

Cook to “Al Dente”

Al dente literally means ‘to the tooth', or with just a little bit of bite. This is considered the perfect pasta texture. Your pasta should not be mushy. And surprisingly, if you follow the old rule of ‘if it sticks to the wall, it's done', you will have already overcooked the pasta. If you want to cook the perfect pasta, you will need to continue to test the pasta throughout the cooking process. There is no perfect time limit, as every brand of pasta cooks differently. Ideally, you want to bite into a piece of pasta and catch just at the moment that it finished cooking. Some people prefer to drain the pasta a minute early, to leave a bit more of a bite in their pasta. But you will find your preference when it comes to cooking perfect pasta.

Drain; don’t rinse

Pasta needs to be drained immediately after it has been cooked.  If you leave it to sit in the hot water, it will just continue cooking and you'll have mushy pasta on your hands. To cook perfect pasta, drain it right away. You do not want to rinse off the pasta afterwards either (another common misconception). This removes starch from the outer layers of the pasta and inhibits your sauce from sticking. Instead of rinsing, put the pasta immediately back into the pot you cooked it in, and drop a ladle full of sauce into the pasta. Stir it around so that every piece of pasta is just lightly covered. This will stop the pasta from sticking together as it sits and it will ensure that every bite of pasta has at least some sauce on it.

Once you’ve mastered the technique of cooking the perfect pasta, you can season your pasta with a bit of onion, garlic, and some ground pepper. You could save a cupful of pasta water and use as a thickening agent to make pasta sauce. Cheese adds some flavor to your pasta dish. Most people recommend Parmesan cheese or Pecorino, cheese made from sheep milk. Butter or olive oil gives pasta that unctuous texture. These condiments also add richness to the flavor as well. Lastly, you can conclude with some finishing touches by using fresh herbs either as a garnish or for some extra taste.  The choice is yours.