12 Pasta Recipes Cooking Tips You Should Know
Nothing comes close to freshly cooked, delicious pasta recipes. Always easy to prepare and highly satisfying, you can cook pasta quickly especially when you have family and friends visiting on weekends. But, most of us don’t cook pasta often, heck; most of us don’t even know how to buy the best pasta maker from the stores. Even though cooking pasta is simple, most of us make some common mistakes without been aware of it.
So, here are 12 pasta recipes cooking tips every pasta lover should know:
Don’t Use a Pot that’s Too Small
If you use a pot that’s very small
the temperature of the boil goes down significantly when pasta is added. Now, if you use a large pot, the water temperature drops too, but this time the pasta remains at the bottom. Now, if the water returns to boil, the pasta becomes mushy and sticky. Always use a large pot with five to six quarts of water.
Always Add Salt to the Water
Adding slight amounts of salt to the water helps to “rough“up the surface of the pasta. This prevents the pasta from getting slimy. Besides, you need salt to season the noodles, especially when you are cooking dried pasta. Add one to two tablespoons of salt in a pot with five to six quarts of water.
Add Pasta to the Water after the Boil
Most of us make this mistake, especially when we are in a hurry to make pasta. We add pasta to water before the water starts boiling. What happens is the pasta sits at the bottom of the pot, making it clunky and rubbery. Only add pasta to the water only when the water is boiling.
Keep Stirring the Pasta
This step is a crucial step in making perfectly cooked pasta. If you don’t keep stirring the pasta after adding it to the water, they get stuck to each other. This is very noticeable in noodles and spaghetti. So, stir the pasta immediately after adding it to water and keep doing it occasionally until the pasta is perfectly boiled.
Rinsing the Pasta after Cooking
Rinsing the pasta after cooking after boiling is a bad idea. The pasta tastes bland and flavorless, and the starch of the pasta also goes away, making the sauces not to stick with the pasta.
Add A Little Oil to the Pasta While Cooking
While cooking pasta, especially noodles and spaghetti, add some extra virgin oil to the boil. It prevents the pasta from sticking. The salt also does the same thing.
Don’t Boil the Pasta For Too Long
If you don’t often cook pasta, it’s advised you always check the directions in the packaging. The tip worth remembering is boiling the pasta in the pot too long. If you boil the pasta for too long, it will become sticky and gooey.
Always Cook Different Types of Pasta Separately
It doesn’t make good sense when you cook different types of pasta in the same bowl unless they look similar in shapes and sizes. This is necessary as different pasta have various cooking times. Plus, it looks ridiculous to see spaghetti and penne all mixed up in the same bowl. Always cook various types of pasta separately.
Don’t Pour All the Sauce on the Pasta
You can have a nice pasta dish without the sauce. So, if you have prepared sauce, it’s better to have some cooking water in the pot, so that the pasta and sauce are mixed properly. The problem with pouring all the sauce on the top of the pasta is most of the sauce goes down the plate, and the pasta absorbs most of the sauce and becomes dry.
Maintain the Heat
As the pasta cooks down quickly after taken from the pot, so it’s advisable we heat the plates or the dishes where the pasta is served to keep the pasta hot. You can do it by pouring cooking water on the plates or the dishes, and then add the pasta on top of it. We can dry the excess water using a kitchen towel before serving. If you have cooked more pasta than you need, you can keep the leftovers in the refrigerator for up to three days. When you need it, just put it in a cooking pot with boiling water for a minute.
Add Cheese after the Pasta has absorbed some Sauce
If your pasta recipe needs cheese on top for dressing, then only cheese on the pasta after it has absorbed some of the sauce. The best way to do this is to grate the cheese on top of the hot pasta, so the cheese does not try dry and melts along the pasta and the sauce.
Don’t Use Too Much Cooking Oil
While preparing pasta recipes only add small amounts of vegetable oils, vegetable cooking oil sprays, or margarine. Also, instead of meat, add vegetables over tomato sauces for additional crunch and flavor
So, there you have it, 12 tips for cooking the perfect pasta. If you remember these simple tips, you can prepare all the delicious pasta recipes perfectly by yourself.
Author Biography
Calvin P. Floyd is a well-rounded blogger who has a wide variety of interests and specializes in doing in depth research for every project. He is an expert in doing in depth market research and also a notorious blogger/writer. He provides an absolute commitment to excellence and strides to provide the best quality work possible by all means. He currently is a blogger for http://pastamakerguide.com in a genuine effort to provide the best quality content to his readers
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Hello Alexa Baran,
I’m glad you like my blog and that you find my articles useful. I hope that the articles will be even more interesting in the future.
Very informative post! Im a pasta lover and it’s good to know that I do everything correct!