Should you add salt to pasta water? Here’s the mistake many people make

Some habits have a hard tooth. Take, for example, cooking pasta: our mothers and grandmothers always taught us to add a little salt to boiling water. And, from generation to generation, this tradition has been perpetuated without really understanding the reason. However, it turns out that this step, which we thought was essential, is useless in a certain sense. If you add salt at the end of cooking, it is pure waste, because it will have no impact on the taste of your spaghetti. On the other hand, at the beginning of cooking, if you salt the pasta water, the taste will be better. And if you thought until now that salt speeds up the boiling process, you were wrong. Turn of the question.

As with the most popular culinary dishes, we often follow certain pre-established rules with our eyes closed. What if we sometimes make mistakes without even realizing it? For years, we’ve been told that adding a few pinches of salt, a clove of garlic or a few dried peppers to the pasta cooking water will make all the difference in the preparation of our spaghetti, tagliatelle, fettuccine and other macaroni. But is it really as useful as we are led to believe?

Is it useful or optional to salt the pasta cooking water?
Add salt when cooking pasta
No doubt, when it comes to preparing good Italian spaghetti, we all tend to season the cooking water. Systematically, spices, especially salt, are added without really knowing why. Popular beliefs abound: some are convinced that it would have a great influence on the temperature of the water and that it promotes much faster boiling.

Read also: How many days can cooked pasta be stored in the refrigerator? Do not eat them again after this time

There is truth and falsehood. Salt water will indeed be hotter than soft water, but the impact on cooking time is minimal (just a few seconds for a reference cooking time of 8 minutes) and on the other hand, salt water will take longer to boil than fresh water. So it doesn’t really matter when you get dirty.

And if that weren’t enough, the pasta doesn’t adhere properly to the salt we’ve added to the pan. The reason is very simple: they probably don’t absorb enough water to make the seasoning worthwhile. As you can see, regardless of the added spice or even olive oil, the pasta doesn’t adhere to anything and retains less water than we imagine. Not to mention that the starch granules don’t completely dissolve, so the center of the noodles remains more intact than the surface.

Finally, in terms of cooking, opinions are quite mixed on the subject. While some believe that a broth of spices in water will have minimal or non-existent effects, other chefs believe that using salt has some significant advantages. In particular, by preventing our pasta from being too sticky. Nothing is more unpleasant than having spaghetti on the plate with a pasty texture that is difficult to remove. Precisely, salt would have the ability to reduce the gelatinization phenomenon of starch.

And what about the taste? Would salt make our pasta taste good? Apparently yes. It is still necessary to dip the pinch of salt at the beginning of cooking. According to specialists, salt water will penetrate the pasta evenly and give it that touch of flavor that they lack. But be careful, be very light-handed, because if you plan to put salt in the sauce, you may have a dish that is too salty and inedible!

Cooking pasta: some common mistakes to avoid making
Cooking pasta
· Not respecting the cooking time indicated by the manufacturer
Almost all of us tend to cook our pasta blindly. And, admit that it is always random: sometimes al dente, sometimes overcooked. However, it will only take you a few seconds to check the optimal cooking time indicated on the packaging. To avoid unpleasant surprises, we strongly recommend that you follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Please note that cooking time should be measured from the moment the water starts to boil.

· Use too little water or an unsuitable pot
When cooking spaghetti, you should use about 1 litre of water for every 100g of pasta. That is, the pan should be large enough to hold them and prevent them from sticking together. Reminder: insert your pasta only at the moment of boiling.

Read also: Julie Andrieux’s trick to make delicious pasta without boiling it in water

· Add oil so that pasta doesn’t stick
Another popular belief: you have to pour a little oil into the cooking water to prevent pasta from sticking. Again, this is a common misconception. The oil stays on the surface and does not stick to the pasta. Since salt already plays this role, as noted above, there is no need to waste it. Another tip