The truth is, pasta is deceptively simple. It's just flour, water, eggs, and salt in its most basic form—yet getting it right requires understanding the small details that make enormous differences. Whether you're boiling dried spaghetti on a busy weeknight or hand-rolling fresh pappardelle for Sunday dinner, these nine chef-approved tricks will elevate your pasta game from acceptable to outstanding. Let's dive into the techniques that separate forgettable pasta from the kind that makes people ask for seconds.
1. Salt Your Water Like the Ocean
When chefs say to salt your pasta water generously, they don't mean a pinch or two—they mean it should taste almost as salty as seawater. This isn't about making your pasta salty; it's about properly seasoning it from the inside out. While the pasta cooks, it absorbs the salted water, developing flavor in a way that no amount of sauce can replicate later. Think of it as your only opportunity to season the pasta itself, not just what's coating the outside.
The standard ratio professional kitchens use is about one tablespoon of kosher salt per quart of water, which sounds like a lot until you realize most of it stays in the pot. When you taste properly salted pasta water, it should be pleasantly saline—not overwhelming, but definitely noticeable. This foundation of flavor makes every bite better, creating depth that carries through the finished dish no matter what sauce you're using.
2. Never Rinse Your Pasta
Rinsing cooked pasta under cold water might seem like common sense to stop the cooking process, but it's actually sabotaging your dish. That cloudy, starchy coating clinging to freshly drained pasta isn't something to wash away—it's liquid gold for creating silky, cohesive sauces. The surface starch acts as a natural emulsifier, helping oil-based and water-based ingredients blend together instead of separating into a greasy mess.
Professional chefs embrace this starchiness because it helps sauce cling to every strand or shape, creating the kind of glossy, unified dish you see in restaurant kitchens. The only exception to this rule is when you're making cold pasta salad, where you genuinely want to halt the cooking and prevent clumping. For everything else—carbonara, aglio e olio, marinara, pesto—skip the rinse and let that starch work its magic.
