What Not To Do When Cooking Pasta

Cooking pasta is simple! You start by putting water in a pot, when it boils you toss in the pasta, you then drain and dress it in your favorite sauce. It's that easy. There are, however, so many local tips and insights you may not be aware of and that are part of the DNA of Italians. Since we grew up seeing our parents and grandparents do things a specific way, we do them automatically too.

In this section, we will tell you everything you need to know when cooking pasta and we'll share our local tips and insights. We'll go over each step and point out the slight differences there are when cooking dry, fresh, or stuffed pasta.

Recipes. Check out all the dishes you can prepare with your fresh homemade pasta in our Primo course!

Let's first start with what not to do.

What Not To Do When Cooking Pasta

It's always helpful to start with the no-nos, those things that Italians would never, ever, ever do when cooking pasta.

Do not ever:

  • Rinse the pasta under running water. There is no reason to do this! Uncooked pasta is clean and safe to eat, plus it will cook in boiling water. And don't rinse after you cook it because you remove all the precious starch that coats it.
  • Toss the pasta into cold water or before the water boils. Pasta must be tossed in boiling water only.
  • Cut long pasta. Whether you are cooking linguine, spaghetti, bucatini or other shapes of dry long pasta, there is one thing you must never do: cut it! They were made long and they should be enjoyed long.
  • Overcook pasta. Overcooking pasta will make it soggy, easily breakable, and taste gluey. We'll tell you what the cooking time is.

Straight From Our YouTube Channel

In this video, Mamma Giuliana shows you how to properly cook fresh and dry pasta.

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