How to Cook Pasta Al Dente: What You're Probably Doing Wrong

If you put a pinch of salt in your pasta water tonight, you missed the first step. If you rinsed the pasta after draining it, you missed the second. And if you tipped the cooked pasta into one bowl and mixed the sauce in another, you missed the third. Don't worry: these mistakes are universal, and fixing them takes no special gear or talent.

Salt: about 2 teaspoons per quart, not a pinch

Pasta water should taste like lightly salted seawater. That's about 10 g of salt per liter of water (roughly 1/3 oz per quart). For a standard 4-quart (4-liter) pot, it comes to 2 level teaspoons of coarse salt. This salt isn't there to season the sauce: it goes into the pasta as it cooks and gives depth to something that would otherwise be bland, even with the best sauce in the world.

The big pot: not negotiable

Pasta needs room to move freely while it cooks. A small, overcrowded pot gives you pasta that sticks together, cooks unevenly and ends up gummy. Use at least 1 quart (1 liter) of water for every 3.5 oz (100 g) of dry pasta.

Never rinse pasta

Rinsing washes off the surface starch that cooking leaves around each piece of pasta. That starch is exactly what lets the sauce grip. Rinsed pasta is slippery, and the sauce just runs off to the bottom of the plate. The habit probably comes from the days when pasta cooked in less water and turned very sticky. With a big, well-salted pot, rinsing serves no purpose.

The cooking water: the secret to creaminess

Before you drain, set aside a big cupful (about 1 cup, or 200 to 300 mL) of the cooking water. It holds dissolved starch that works as a natural binder. When you add a few spoonfuls of it to the pan with your sauce, the starch emulsifies the fat and the liquid and builds that creamy texture that clings to every piece. This is the basic principle behind carbonara, aglio e olio, and nearly every simple Italian sauce.

Al dente: pull it 2 minutes before the package says

The times printed on packages are for full cooking, which is slightly more than you want. Take the pasta out two minutes before the stated time, drain it, and finish it right in the pan with the sauce over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes. It finishes cooking in the sauce, soaks up the flavor, and the surface starch blends into the sauce. That's the difference between pasta you ate and pasta you remember.

Shapes aren't interchangeable

Tubular pasta (rigatoni, penne, paccheri) suits thick, meaty sauces: the sauce settles inside, so every bite has some in the middle. Long pasta (spaghetti, linguine, tagliatelle) works with lighter sauces that wrap around it. Bolognese on spaghetti isn't a disaster, but garlic and oil on rigatoni means losing half the sauce at the bottom of the plate.

One last thing: oil in the cooking water is an urban legend. It doesn't stop pasta from sticking together (only enough water does that), and it coats the pasta in a greasy film that keeps the sauce from adhering. Skip it.

Cooking in the sauce: the move that changes everything

Once the pasta is out of the water, two minutes before the stated time, tip it into the pan where the sauce is waiting, add a ladle of cooking water and stir over medium heat. The sauce thickens and coats every piece. If it gets too tight, add a little more cooking water, not plain water.

Frequently asked questions

How much salt for pasta water? About 10 g per liter (1/3 oz per quart). Should I add oil? No. It doesn't stop sticking and it gets in the way of the sauce. How much water for 3.5 oz (100 g) of pasta? At least 1 quart (1 liter). How do I know the pasta is al dente? Taste a piece a few minutes before the end: the center should still be slightly firm, with no raw flour taste.