Whether to cook pasta with or without olive oil is a question that many people are left with. Should you or shouldn’t you?
There are all kinds of answers online. But whether you can do anything with them is a second thing. To answer your question clearly, we give you our opinion below. That way, you can decide for yourself whether to cook your pasta with or without olive oil from now on….
Cook pasta with or without olive oil?
A short and concise answer to this question: no, cook your pasta without olive oil! “Why not? Is what I hear you wondering.
To answer that question, we must first explain a few things to you clearly. Because it’s not a disaster if you do use olive oil. It’s just better not to. Cooking pasta without olive oil has several advantages.
Disadvantages of cooking pasta with olive oil
Let’s first describe the disadvantages of cooking pasta with olive oil. In fact, there are also some disadvantages. These are at the base of our advice not to use olive oil:
It is a waste of olive oil
Cooking pasta with olive oil is a waste of olive oil. Especially if you use real Italian olive oil. This one is too tasty and usually best priced.
If you use it to put in the pasta water while cooking the pasta, you are basically throwing away a delicious olive oil. In fact, after cooking the pasta, you drain the pasta. The olive oil floats on the water and you wash this away. A waste!
Olive oil forms a smooth layer around the pasta
Isn’t this exactly what you want to achieve once you use olive oil while cooking pasta? Yes and no.
Yes because the pasta doesn’t really stick together after draining. And no, because on the other hand, the olive oil forms a slippery layer around the pasta. A big disadvantage of this (a very big disadvantage in our eyes) is that your pasta sauce no longer sticks to the pasta. An unmitigated disaster!
You did your best to make a delicious pasta sauce and then the sauce doesn’t adhere to the pasta. This leaves you with a pathetic pile of pasta floating on your delicious homemade pasta sauce.
Advantages of cooking pasta without olive oil
Cooking pasta without olive oil has many advantages. That’s why we say it’s better not to use olive oil while cooking pasta.
You save olive oil, and money
As described under the disadvantages, you don’t throw away delicious and pricey Italian olive oil while draining pasta. A waste, and it saves you a lot of money!
Use a lot of water
Pasta will stick together during cooking because pasta is usually cooked with too little water.
The pasta needs room to dance in the pan. Therefore, use enough water so that the pasta has all the space it needs to do the same. To keep it simple, we recommend using 1 liter of water for every 100 grams of pasta. This way you can be sure that you always use enough water to cook your pasta.
You will see that once you use enough water, the pasta will stick together less. As a result, you won’t need to use any olive oil at all!
Stir the pasta regularly
In addition to using plenty of water, it can also be very helpful to stir the pasta regularly. Stir the pasta every 1-2 minutes so it doesn’t have a chance to stick together. Cooking pasta doesn’t happen by itself!
Adding pasta directly into the pasta sauce
After you have cooked the pasta as you should, drain the pasta using a colander. In Italy, after draining, they throw the pasta directly into the pasta sauce. So the pasta is never served separately from the pasta sauce.
This is perhaps the most important tip to avoid pasta sticking. So after draining, throw the pasta right into the pasta sauce and mix everything well. The pasta won’t have time to stick together and you won’t need to use any olive oil.
Cook pasta without olive oil!
We recommend cooking pasta without olive oil. Adding olive oil to pasta water is not necessary if you follow these simple instructions:
- Use plenty of water while cooking.
- Stir the pasta during cooking.
- Add the pasta to the pasta sauce immediately after cooking.
If you do these 3 simple things, it is impossible for the pasta to stick together. As a result, you won’t need to use olive oil while cooking the pasta!