7 Mistakes To Avoid While Cooking Pasta

By Krati Purwar

January 31, 2024

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Pasta is a tricky dish to ace. People often end up undercooked or lumps of pasta shells. However, if you take care of a couple of things, you can cook lip-smacking Italian dishes at home. Here is your guide.

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Not Stirring

It’s a good idea to continuously stir the pasta while cooking to prevent it from becoming lumpy. If you think that adding oil can help, it won’t. Stirring will help to keep every piece separated.

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Not Cooling Pasta

If you are making cold pasta salad, you should keep aside the boiled pasta and let it cool in the air. Dipping in ice-cold water or running under tap water will not do the trick.

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Add Pasta To Cold Water

The worst that you can do is add pasta to water when it hasn’t started boiling. Rapid bubbles in the water will keep each pasta shell separate from the other and ensure faster cooking.

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Overcooking Pasta

Overcooking pasta is your gateway to ruining your dish in a jiffy. It will lose all the starch. Therefore, pasta is often cooked al dente, when it is neither chewy nor hard.

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Not Adding Salt

When cooking pasta, salt acts as a stabiliser and ensures that your dish has a better texture. Therefore, adding the optimum amount of salt to pasta water is necessary. 

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Not Cook Pasta In Sauce

If you have cooked pasta 100% in water, it won’t be able to absorb flavours in the sauce. Therefore, you must cook the remaining 30% of pasta in the sauce.

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Not Boiling Enough Water

Pasta needs to be boiled in a large amount of water. Pasta shells and noodles expand when they are cooked. If the amount of water is not sufficient, pasta will not cook properly.

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