Making pasta seems so easy. You boil some water, add some salt, and dump in the pasta. Set a timer, drain it, and you’re done. Right?
When you start picking apart the process, things can get complicated. How much water do you really need? How much salt, and when should you add it? Beyond the timer, how can you tell when the pasta is really done? And what about draining it—should you rinse the pasta afterwards or not?
The last thing you want to do is spend time cooking pasta only to make a misstep at the last minute. To tackle the final question—to rinse or not to rinse?—I talked to some pasta-expert chefs.
The Pasta Professionals
Should You Rinse Pasta After Cooking It?
The answer from all three pasta-loving chefs was a resounding no. “I never rinse pasta after cooking,” says Barilla’s Boni. “When you don’t rinse pasta, the starch left on its surface helps the sauce cling to and evenly coat each piece, rather than slipping off or pooling at the bottom of the plate.”
Prakash adds that, when you rinse pasta, “You’re washing away its starchy coating, which is useful in so many ways. That starch, together with a splash or two of the starchy pasta water, helps bind your pasta to whatever sauce it’s tossed in and create an emulsified, creamy finished dish.”
Cacace agrees: “The main reason you shouldn’t rinse pasta after cooking is that you’re washing away the surface starches that help the sauce cling to the noodles. Pasta should generally be drained and immediately tossed with the sauce it’s being served with.”
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Not only do these chefs skip rinsing their pasta after cooking, but they also save some of the pasta water to help finish off the dish. “The water is full of starch, and adding a splash to the sauce helps emulsify and thicken it while helping the sauce adhere to the pasta,” says Cacace.
So where did the whole unnecessary rinsing step come from in the first place? Boni explains: “This technique originated when pasta was more commonly made with softer wheat or wheat blends, which released excess starch and stuck together.” Dry pasta is commonly made from durum wheat now, and doesn’t require rinsing.
The One Time You Can Rinse Pasta After Cooking
Cacace and Prakash note that you can rinse pasta after cooking when you’re making a cold pasta salad. This can help keep the noodles from sticking together and “cool down the pasta quickly so that you can toss it with the rest of your pasta salad ingredients without warming or cooking them,” says Prakash.
Boni still opts to skip rinsing no matter what, and has a different tip for cooling pasta for dishes like pasta salad. “If your pasta needs to cool or won’t be added to sauce right away, toss it with a tablespoon of olive oil and spread it on a sheet pan. This prevents sticking without rinsing away starch, color, or flavor.”
Read the original article on Simply Recipes