Oil in boiling water for your pasta. It doesn't stop your pasta sticking, stirring does. It only floats on the top and then gets poured away when you drain.
Edit: I feel it's only fair to mention that yes, I put a decent amount of salt in my water before boiling both pasta and potatoes. I should have mentioned that since it also increases the boiling point of the water and can cook things slightly better than without.
Yea, I found a place selling premeasured "Italian sea salt" for salting the water. I didn't buy the insane thing, but I did take the amounts they premeasured to heart.
Boiling potatos in a shit ton of salt makes them really good too. Like more than you would for pasta, way more, like a concerning amount. Salt is cheap and you dump most of it out, but the high concentration seasons the potato all the way through.
yep, salt potatoes are a NYer thing, specifically from Syracuse but they have spread West towards Buffalo. One of my favorite ways to cook potatoes, and then you get to dump a bunch of butter on them, very tastey.
Just FYI, some potato types can dissolve in salted water! We have bred so many different types of potatoes so be sure to research or test before as is CAN become a very watery, salty potato mash
Just seasoning the water in general. I'll add herbs to the water that I know will mostly get poured out, but it really adds another dimension to the flavor.
Also I really enjoy boiling noodles in salty tabasco water for peppery and/or vodka sauces.
The spice doesn't really linger but you get a wonderfully light smoky pepper flavor penetrating the dish.
If you want to take this a step further, I simmer my old Parmesan rinds, some garlic, onions, and peppercorns to make Parmesan stock and freeze it. Then I boil my pasta in the stock rather than water.
That sounds like an interesting idea! We freeze all our leftover parmesan rinds and then add a few whenever we make a long-simmering bolognaise or ragu.
Same thing happened a few years ago with my ex. Her pasta was coming out bland when she cooked it. I showed her how much salt to add and she was in disbelief that’s how much I had been using for years. She thought I was trying to kill her via heart attack.
I literally have to add the salt when my husband isn’t looking, otherwise he’ll experience an involuntary muscle spasm that makes him bitch about how much salt I’m using. Just go sit down, honey, and enjoy the meal ☺️
Different boiling, but when making mashed potatoes, I was taught to make the water for boiling the potatoes be as salty as the ocean. It is an aggressive, but correct amount of salt.
Still an experiment I would advise people to try once. It really drives home how much of a difference it can make and you can dial down to reasonable amount after.
Just so I get an idea... iI were to boil say 1 quart of water for pasta, about how many spoonfuls of salt should I put in? I know it's a rough estimate
I was about to complain about this commonly repeated phrase because it’s so nonsense. And untrue. Properly salted boil water should be 0.5-1% salt. Thats 10g of salt per liter, or for fellow Americans it’s about a tablespoon per 2 quarts if using Diamond Crystal and a teaspoon per quart if you use Morton.
The ocean is way saltier than people realize. At 3.5% salinity you need to dump in 7 tablespoons of Diamond Crystal salt for a gallon of water, and that’s completely inedible and will ruin pasta.
Do not make it as salty as the ocean. But you may need to use more salt than you think, people putting a single pinch of salt into a massive amount of water are being stupid. Unless you have high blood pressure or other heart issues and need a low sodium diet, most people should be using more salt in their home kitchen if they want food to actually taste good.
Well, thats not actually why you do it though. Oil in the water floats to the top and helps resists the protein foam boilover. There's other methods for that too though, laying a wooden spoon along the top of the pot can do the trick. Or I guess you can always watch the water boil.
Or just dont overheat your pasta water. Boil over comes from a rolling boil making bubbles. Once the pasta is in just drop the heat to medium and it wont foam at all. Pasta doesn't cook better in water that is at a full boil, and it could be argued it cooks worse
I actually learned this from a textbook written in the 1920s; water at a rolling boil is no hotter than at a gentle boil; it's 212 degrees at atmospheric pressure, regardless, so you're just using more fuel and wasting water by keeping it at a rolling boil the whole time.
Thats correct... the temperature is what does the cooking. gentle vs rolling boil just refers to the amount of heat or cooking pressure applied that accelerates the conversion of water of the steam which doesnt do anything to cooktime other than steaming up your kitchen. Has 0% to do with cooking quality though.
You cannot overheat a boil, well, until you run out of water.
Thing is on my stove there seems to be just two settings: not hot enough to keep a boil going, and intense rolling boil. Getting the temp right for a gentle boil might be possible but I haven't figured out the trick of it yet and it is just easier to keep it at a rolling boil than to turn it down and then realize the water stopped boiling 5 minutes ago when I go check on it.
If the water is threatening to boil over, you either used too much water, or a pot which is too small. Less water is better for pasta as you want some of that starchy water at the end for emulsifying the sauce. Too much water in the pot and the water isn’t very starchy.
It sounds like people just the oil for boil over prevention. But to me this isn’t worth the end result of slippy pasta that doesn’t stick to my pasta’s sauce
You have water boiling over because your heat is too high. Once the pasta releases starch the bubbles formed from a rapid boil dont pop as easily and build up, leading to boil over. The thing is, you shouldn't be cooking your pasta at a full boil. You turn the heat to high to get the water to boiling, but once you add the pasta you can turn down the flame to medium. A consistent simmer and regular stiring is all you need.
I have never had pasta water even begin bubbling, much less boil over, and it cooks the exact same. Perfect al dente every time and with less risk of scalding steam or overcooked pasta
What else is in the water? How much headspace is in your pot? I have never had water boil over that doesn't have food in it. Plain water or salt water won't foam up the way water with pasta (or potatoes, etc) in it will.
So I can only imagine that you have the pot so full that there's not enough space for even a rolling boil of plain water. But in that case, oil won't help.
Then your heat is WAY too high. Also, a rolling boil makes bubbles, but they dont "froth" like pasta water bubbles do. How are you boiling over before adding the pasta unless the water is like, filled all the way to the lip of the pan?
It sounds like too much water. Most people think you need a ton of water (including me) but my partner insisted it would be fine, pulled up a bunch of chefs that tested it and really you actually want the least amount of water possible to cover it because then the pasta water has a higher starch concentration, which if you mix a spoonful into whatever sauce you’re using, helps it emulsify and stick to the pasta.
That may work, but the downside of sauces not adhering as well to the finished pasta would lead me to the other ways of not boiling over, like using a larger pot with the water not so close to the top.
I was taught not to put olive oil on cooked pasta because it makes it harder for the pasta to hold onto your sauce. You should be cooking your pasta so that it finishes after your sauce and the two can be mixed immediately after draining.
Oh I see makes sense, I hadn't heard of the olive oil when boiling it before though. I never bothered oiling it after I drained my pasta anyway so laziness wins..? haha
Dunno, works for me. I have to stir constantly to keep it from clumping if I don’t but if I put some oil in then pour the pasta over it, no sticking. I just let it boil and stir once when it softens to get it all under water.
True, it does nothing to the pasta at all. But it does dramatically cut down on starch foam. So it can prevent foamy boil overs...or you can just turn the heat down or use a bigger pot.
It doesnt actually cook your food any noticeable amount better, but it does add an extra layer of seasoning. By adding salt to your water you might increase the temperature by a miniscule amount, but it realistically doesnt change how it cooks
Oil in the water helps it from clumping after it's cooked as well as adding flavor. The you can use your pasta water to bind your sauce. I pour the oil in the water and on the pasta after if it's going to sit in the fridge.
My main reason for not doing it is simply to make cleaning the pot + strainer + spoon a teeny tiny bit easier to wash afterward... because I'm lazy and touching oil is gross
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u/PickleMortyCoDm 15h ago edited 3h ago
Oil in boiling water for your pasta. It doesn't stop your pasta sticking, stirring does. It only floats on the top and then gets poured away when you drain.
Edit: I feel it's only fair to mention that yes, I put a decent amount of salt in my water before boiling both pasta and potatoes. I should have mentioned that since it also increases the boiling point of the water and can cook things slightly better than without.