America's Test Kitchen
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Your pasta's done, and you're saving the pasta water, just like all the recipes tell you to. In fact, I've probably told you you need this. It's going to help you bring that dish together. But, do you know how much to add? Do you know when to add it? Do you know when you need more? Let's get into it.
>> [music] >> The pasta water you save, it's mostly water with some starch and some salt. How you use it, that's going to vary depending on the sauce you're stirring it into. Now, one of the keys to a great pasta is allowing it to spend a little bit of time cooking in the sauce. Even
if it's just briefly, something critical happens. Along with the water, the pasta absorbs some of the flavors of the sauce, and in turn, it gives up some of its surface starch. The resulting dish is cohesive because the pasta tastes like more than just boiled dough, and the sauce is just clingy enough. You
know how this works. I'm going to make a really simple pasta with jarred marinara to demonstrate. Now, if you don't have a favorite brand, you can check out our review of jarred pasta sauce on the America's Test Kitchen app or at americastestkitchen.com.
I've got my salted water here, and we'll add some fettuccine. And this is just going to cook till it's al dente.
Pasta's almost done. I'm going to save a little bit of that water and go drain this. And finally, the pasta goes in the sauce. So, even though it's just very briefly, I like giving the pasta and sauce a little time to hang out together. The noodles are going to pick up a little bit of extra flavor, and
they're going to give up some of their starch, and that'll give the sauce a nice consistency. If I were serving this immediately, I probably wouldn't bother with adding more liquid. These noodles are nicely sauced, they're not too tight. But, let's give this 5 minutes and see what happens.
It's been 5 minutes, and you can see how the sauce isn't saucy anymore, and it looks kind of matte and sad? When I get into it, there's not really anything going on in the bottom of the pan.
What's happened is the pasta's absorbed water from the sauce, and that's where a little bit of this pasta water comes in really handy. I'm just going to add a tablespoon or two. There's really no need to measure, and then give this a toss. And what I'm looking for is for that sheen to come back, and for there
to just be a little bit of sauce flowing on the bottom of the pan. You can see there's a little bit of sauce down here.
It's got a little flow to it, and the pasta itself has a nice sheen. Because the water was seasoned, it's not going to make this dish taste flat. And the only concern here is that the longer the noodles sit, and the more water they absorb, the softer they'll become. So, you can use your pasta water to adjust
sauce consistency, but it could be at the cost of the pasta's texture. Now, a couple of tablespoons won't make a noticeable change, but if you know your pasta's going to sit for a little bit before serving, you want to get it out of the boiling water and into the sauce a little bit earlier than usual. That's
