Cooking Spaghetti

It's probably one of the first things I ever learned to cook, though I rarely cook it now. I simply add it to water and a bit of salt, let it boil a bit and keep an eye on it. When I think it's close to ready I still do the old trick of throwing it against the wall to see if it sticks. Not sure whether you're meant to cook it any other way but that's the way I learned as a teenager.

 

I like spaghetti as is. I can even eat it without any sauce. I guess it would taste better with salt, and I'm usually massive on salt when it comes to food, but for some reason, regular spaghetti is fine with me.

Of course it's better with some carbonara, alfredo, or pomodoro sauce though, but it's not a requirement for me.

 

Most Italians would add salt to boiling water and then cook it. I don't, though if I am cooking a large portion I might and add a drop of oil, even though that's not recommended. I like oily pasta and use a pesto sauce which would need oil anyhow. Using oil isn't always advised as sauces won't cling to the pasta, but it depends if you are using butter as a sauce in which case it won't matter.

 

When I made it on a regular basis, no, I didn't add salt. And I made my pasta from scratch.. nothing like it! Before my days making it from scratch.. I usually just grabbed a few strands of pasta (still no salt) and somehow always ended up with enough to feed my whole neighbourhood. Never quite learned the right amount of dry pasta to use to just feed my family haha.

 

I always add a pinch of salt to the water. Doing this ensures the pasta does not stick to the pan and to itself. Don't worry about the health implications, you only need a tiny amount and the majority of it is discarde with the cooking water anyhow.

 

I used to work in an Italian restaurant and this is how they did spaghetti- They cooked each order of pasta when it was ordered, there was always a giant pot of water boiling for that. the pot had salt and olive oil in the water. The sauce was always in a large pot heated. So you would cook and drain the pasta, about 10 minutes for an order for two would be enough to make it el dente, then after draining the restaurant adds just a tiny bit of sauce to the pasta and tosses it with parmesan cheese, then adds the rest of the sauce to the middle with whatever meat was ordered.

 

Nope, I like my spaghetti noodles boiled in water with no additives, because that's what the tomato sauce is for. However, since I too lazy to make my own tomato pasta sauce like most humans, I do add salt and other ingredients into it along with meatballs or a minced meat of sort to give it more flavor. If I do use salt, it has to be sea or kosher salt, other salts simply make it more salty only but does not bring embellish the sauce.

 

I just cook the spaghetti in boiling water. I find that the sauce I use has enough sodium and taste to suffice. I will usually add ground beef to the sauce and perhaps a touch of salt while I'm cooking the meat.

 

I add salt to my spaghetti. It's customary in the family. It also adds to the firmness of the pasta. Basically, this is how I cook Spaghetti Bolognese:

(1) Boil water in a pot. Let boil for 3-5 minutes.
(2) Add a teaspoon of oil and a pinch of salt.
(3) I divide the strands into half and pour on them on the pot of boiling water.
(4) Stir occasionally.
(5) On a separate pan, I sautee onions and garlic cloves for a few minutes and then add ground beef.
(6) After a few minutes, I pour in two packs of sweet-style sauce along with grated cheese and some spices and stir until the sauce thickens.
(7) I drain the spaghetti that must have been cooked around this time and then place it on a large platter.
(8) I add quickmelt cheese on top of the sauce and pour the finished mixture over the drained spaghetti.

 

I love all pasta including spaghetti. I boil mine with a pinch of salt and some olive oil. The secret is also to keep stirring it to ensure it doesn't clump together. I too love pasta so much I think cooked this way you can eat it without a sauce, especially if you have some gorgeous grated parmigiano cheese

 

I think it depends on what sauce you are going to use. Store bought sauces should already have enough salt in them, so adding more when cooking the spaghetti isn't necessary. However if you are making your own sauce from scratch, or just eating pasta with a little olive oil drizzled on top I think adding some salt would be fine.

 

Yep, I add salt.

I normally cook it in a simple way, al dente. Separately I prepare nice sauces, most of time involving tuna or grounded meat or chicken, then I add it slowly to the pasta. As they don't involve salt, it doesn't end being too salty. The result is excellent.

One of these days I should experiment other ways, though.

 

I add a few dash of salt while I'm boiling the noodles. Also, I add olive oil one teaspoon of olive oil into the boiling water. It helps keep the noodles firm, even when you overcook it or in case you would have to reheat your food.

I also don't mix the sauce right away. I just serve the noodles on its own and then it's up to everyone else to just add the amount of sauce that they need.

 

With spaghetti in particular, I usually break it in half first before adding it to the pot (I know, heresy! lol), and I don't bother with salting the water either. I don't do the oil in the water thing either.

The reason I break it is because the spaghetti will otherwise just lean against the edge of the pan until the submerged part starts to soften - and while it's touching the edge of the pan it has a tendency to brown and scorch. Granted I could simply use a larger pot, but then it's going to take even longer for a larger pot full of water to come to a boil.

I don't see the need for adding salt to the water, and honestly I question how many people would even notice had you not told them. Look at the uproar over Olive Garden when it was revealed they didn't salt their water. Nobody said a thing about it until some news reporter pointed it out, then everyone started acting like *that* was why their pasta dishes were no good.

Also, I would rather have pasta that is a little over cooked than anything under cooked, so I'm not a stickler about the whole "al dente" thing. As far as I'm concerned, if it's still a bit chewy it's just under cooked.