Jessica Vargas
Noodles – no matter what form – are the absolute favorite food of many people. The question of whether or not to quench pasta after cooking regularly leads to heated discussions. We bring light into the darkness and reveal an insider tip with which you can prevent the delicious pasta from forming a sticky lump of pasta.
Whether spaghetti, fusilli, or penne: After cooking, many people swear by quenching the pasta under cold running water. The reason so many home cooks rinse pasta under cold water after cooking is to prevent the pasta from clumping. However, quenching under cold water is not a good idea in most cases.
Why you better not put pasta off
Rinsing the pasta under cold water rinses the slightly sticky starch film off the pasta. This leads to the unfortunate result that the sauce no longer sticks to the pasta as well. In addition, the noodles are no longer hot after quenching, but only lukewarm at most. And if you want to wrap spaghetti in proper style with a fork, you will have a hard time doing it, because the quenched pasta quickly slips off the fork.
If you are preparing pasta salad, it makes sense to briefly chill the pasta after cooking: the pasta for the pasta salad will then not become mushy so quickly. And they cool faster, so you can quickly prepare the pasta salad.
Even with noodles that you want to save and eat later, quenching is not a mistake. By washing off the starch, you will have fewer problems with pasta sticking together.
Five tips to keep the pasta from sticking together
To prevent the pasta from sticking together, these tricks will help:
- Boil the pasta in a large pot with plenty of water – preferably one liter of water for 100 grams of pasta.
- While cooking, stir the noodles regularly with a wooden spoon or cooking fork.
- Do without oil or butter in the pasta water: both ensure that sauces or pesto no longer stick to the pasta so well.
- Cook the pasta only al dente, i.e. “al dente”. This also helps to minimize sticking.
- An insider tip that Italian restaurateurs use to cook the pasta: keep some of the cooking water from draining and then mix it with the pasta. “The starch in the cooking water also binds sauces, so that liquid variants are easy to eat,” advises the consumer advice center.
