A delicious plate of spaghetti naturally starts with cooking spaghetti. How exactly should you cook spaghetti and what is the best way?
We tell you exactly what is the best way to cook spaghetti, and give you 6 handy tips to…
How should you cook spaghetti?
Cooking spaghetti is done in a large pan of boiling water. Fill the pan with water, bring the water to a boil and add the spaghetti to the pan. Cook the spaghetti for about 9 minutes until tender. Once the spaghetti is done you can drain them. Add the spaghetti to the pasta sauce and serve your pasta dish on warm plates.
But of course there is much more to tell about how to cook spaghetti.
After years of experience cooking spaghetti, we have a lot of handy tips we can give you. That’s why we’ve put 6 handy tricks on paper.
Spaghetti cooking tip #1: Cook spaghetti in a large pan
The first step in cooking spaghetti is picking the right pan. Choose a large pan! After all, the bigger the better. Spaghetti should be able to dance in the pan. This helps against the spaghetti sticking.
The type of pan we always use to cook pasta in is a pasta pan. A pasta pan is a special pan designed for cooking pasta. In fact, you can cook the pasta and drain it immediately thanks to the inset that is inside the pan.
Therefore, a pasta pan is not only easier, but also much safer to cook with than an ordinary pan.
Want to know more about pasta pans and which one is our favorite? Then take a look at our blog: ‘What is a good pasta pan’
Get a large pan and fill it 75% full of hot water. You can also use a kettle to bring the water to a boil beforehand. This saves a lot of time. After you fill the pan with water, put it on the gas. Turn the gas to the highest setting and bring the water to a boil.
Spaghetti cooking tip #2: Put some salt in the water
Once the water boils, you can add a little salt to it. It may seem like a small thing, but it gives your plate of spaghetti so much extra flavor!
Salt gives all the flavors an extra boost, bringing out those flavors better. This makes your plate of spaghetti, with a small action, much tastier. Do be careful, though, because too much salt will ruin your whole dish.
To clarify how much salt you need when cooking spaghetti, it is useful to keep the following measure: add about 10 grams of salt per 3 liters of water. In our opinion, this is the ideal amount of salt for a delicious plate of spaghetti.
Want to know more about the effect of salt on your favorite pasta dish? Then take a look at our blog: “Cooking pasta with or without salt?” about using salt while cooking pasta.
Spaghetti cooking tip #3: Don’t use a lid while cooking spaghetti
This tip will also help you cook spaghetti a little easier. In fact, it saves a whole lot of mess. By not putting a lid on the pan while cooking the spaghetti, you ensure that the water does not foam.
Somehow cooking water always starts foaming as soon as you put a lid on the pan. That has to do with the starch in the pasta.
We don’t want to make it too complicated, so our tip is simple: don’t use a lid while cooking spaghetti.
Another reason not to use a lid while cooking spaghetti is because you need to keep the spaghetti moving. We’ll tell you more about this in the next tip.
Spaghetti cooking tip #4: Keep the spaghetti moving well while cooking
Spaghetti tends to stick together. Therefore, keep the spaghetti moving well while cooking.
By stirring the spaghetti once every minute, the pasta has no chance of sticking together. This saves a lot of irritation later on.
Since sticky spaghetti is one of the biggest sources of irritation, we wrote a whole blog on how to prevent sticky pasta.
Read all about it on the blog: ‘How to prevent sticky pasta’.
It is best to use a spaghetti spoon to stir through the spaghetti. This type of spoon is specially designed for scooping up spaghetti and for stirring in the pan.
This is one of those kitchen tools that should be in every pasta lover’s kitchen. Invest in a good spaghetti spoon and guaranteed you’ll never want anything else!
Read all about using a spaghetti spoon here.
Spaghetti cooking tip #5: Taste the pasta before draining
An important tip we want to give you is to taste the spaghetti before draining. In fact, once the spaghetti is cooked, it is useful to taste a spaghetti string. Do this about 1 minute before you want to drain the spaghetti.
Why should you taste a spaghetti string? Well it has two major advantages:
#1 You immediately taste whether you added too little salt to the water. Should this be the case, you can do this first. Let the spaghetti cook for another minute before you finally drain it anyway. In case the spaghetti is already cooked and you don’t want to overcook it, you can also choose to add a little salt to your pasta sauce. By doing so, you compensate for the lack of salt in the spaghetti water and your spaghetti will not overcook.
#2 You can taste right away if the spaghetti is cooked. By taking a string of spaghetti out of the water and tasting it, you can tell immediately if the spaghetti is like cooked enough to eat. The spaghetti should be “al dente. In other words, cooked enough to eat but it should still have a slight “bite. This is how they cook spaghetti in Italy. By the way, this is easier said than done. Cooking spaghetti al dente is almost an art form. Here you can read all about cooking pasta al dente.
Tasting the spaghetti before draining is perhaps the most important tip in this list. After all, it has everything to do with how the spaghetti tastes later on the plate. An overcooked spaghetti or spaghetti that is still uncooked can ruin your whole dish. Therefore, always taste a spaghetti string before you drain it!
Spaghetti cooking tip #6: Add the spaghetti to the pasta sauce right away.
After draining the spaghetti, it is convenient to add it to the pasta sauce right away. We talked earlier about the fact that spaghetti tends to stick. By adding the spaghetti to the pasta sauce immediately after draining, you help prevent this from happening.
In Italy, by the way, it is quite normal to add the spaghetti to the pasta sauce right away. You will never see loose spaghetti and loose pasta sauce served in Italy. That’s why in Italy they never suffer from sticky spaghetti!
So always put the spaghetti directly into the pan with sauce. This will save you a lot of irritation, and make cooking spaghetti a lot more enjoyable!
How long should spaghetti cook?
The average cooking time for spaghetti is about 9 minutes. Of course, there are many different sizes of spaghetti, some are thicker than others, for example, so it is difficult to attach an exact number of minutes to it.
By the way, the packaging always indicates the cooking time of the spaghetti. So look carefully at the package and assume that the number of minutes is correct. But always taste just to be sure, as told above.
When we talk about the cooking time of spaghetti we are always talking about the time the spaghetti is in the boiling water. Therefore, if the package says to cook the spaghetti for 9 minutes, this is meant to be 9 minutes in boiling water. Therefore, do not put spaghetti in the pan until the water is actually boiling.
What is also very important is that once you have thrown the spaghetti into the boiling water, bring it back to a boil as soon as possible. Put the pasta in the boiling water and turn the gas as high as possible. This is because as soon as the spaghetti enters the water, the cooking time begins.
How much spaghetti do you cook per person?
How much spaghetti to cook per person depends on a number of factors. Since we dedicated an entire blog just to the amount of pasta per person, we’ll keep it short and clear here.
- Amount of spaghetti per person as a starter: 80 grams (uncooked)
- Amount of spaghetti per person as main dish: 125 grams (uncooked)
- Amount of spaghetti per person with little pasta sauce: 125 grams (uncooked)
- Amount of spaghetti per person with lots of pasta sauce: 80 grams (uncooked)
Of course, there are many different factors in determining the right amount of spaghetti per person. If you want to know exactly how much spaghetti to cook per person, you can always take a look at our blog: how much pasta to cook per person. Here we really tell you all about the amount of pasta per person and why we recommend these quantities.
How much water in the pan when cooking spaghetti?
When cooking spaghetti, the amount of water in the pan is very important. This is because the spaghetti must have room to dance. If the spaghetti has room, it will not stick together as easily. In addition, spaghetti can suck up as much as twice its weight in water during cooking. This “shrinks” the amount of water in the pan.
To be specific, it is useful to follow the following rule of thumb: use about 1 liter of water per 100 grams of uncooked spaghetti. If you keep this amount of water, you’re always right. The spaghetti then has room to dance in the pan and fill up with water.
Suppose you want to cook spaghetti for 4 people, this boils down to the following: 100 grams of pasta per person x 4 people = 400 grams of pasta. So 1 liter of water per 100 grams of spaghetti equals 4 liters of water.
To cook spaghetti for 4 people, you need at least 4 liters of water. Note: minimum! Of course, this does not mean that you cannot use more than 4 liters of water. You can easily put 6 or 8 liters of water in the pan. More water does not affect the cooking process, while less water does.
Of course, more water does cause the water to take longer to boil. A small detail that is not important if you have enough time. But if time is tight, pay attention to the amount of water. It can save several minutes in a flash to bring the excess water to a boil.
Easier cooking with a pasta pan
Cooking spaghetti in a pasta pan can save you a lot of trouble and irritation. That’s why we also want to give you this tip. We ourselves have struggled for a long time without a pasta pan and don’t want anything else anymore!
A pasta pan works the same as a normal pan. However, there is one big difference. The pasta pan consists of two parts. The pan itself, and a kind of colander that you hang in the pan. This colander is super handy for draining the spaghetti once it is cooked.
Use the pasta pan as follows:
- Fill the pasta pan with water.
- Put the pasta pan with water on the gas and turn the gas on high.
- Wait for the water to boil.
- Add the spaghetti to the boiling water and cook the spaghetti until tender.
- Once the spaghetti is cooked, you can lift up the colander of the pasta pan. The water will flow back into the pan through the holes in the colander and the spaghetti will come up with it.
- Let the spaghetti drip for a moment over the pan and pour the spaghetti into the pan with pasta sauce.
So the operations while using a pasta pan are almost the same as with a normal pan. So the difference is in the draining of the pasta. And that’s quite a big difference in our eyes! If you want to know all about a pasta pan and which one we recommend, read our blog: what is a good pasta pan
Of course, this is a short and concise explanation of how to use a pasta pan. But there is more to using a pasta pan. In our blog: ‘How to work and use a pasta pan’ we tell you more about it.
Are you interested in purchasing a pasta pan and experiencing the benefits for yourself? You can find more than enough good pasta pans on amazon, for example.
Check out the pasta pans on amazon:
Cooking spaghetti al dente
In Italy, spaghetti is cooked ‘al dente’. The literal translation of ‘al dente’ is: al dente. The Italian tradition is to keep a little bite in the spaghetti so you still have to chew a little. Cooking spaghetti is easier said than done. But once you get the hang of it, it goes without effort
So, al dente spaghetti is simply put: spaghetti cooked al dente. To cook spaghetti al dente, the first thing you need to do is look on the package for the cooking time indicated. If the package says 9 minutes, cook the pasta for 8 minutes. This makes the pasta just a little less cooked and chances are that the spaghetti is cooked al dente.
To be sure the spaghetti is not too al dente, it is important to taste the spaghetti before draining. Elevator a spaghetti string out of the water and taste it. Is there still a little bite in the spaghetti? Then the spaghetti is cooked al dente. That’s it!
In the blog: cooking pasta al dente is how we explain how to cook pasta al dente.
Cooking spaghetti without sticking
Cooking spaghetti without sticking together is easy. On the Internet you read all sorts of wild stories about using olive oil and rinsing the spaghetti with cold water. Nonsense if you ask us.
Cooking spaghetti without sticking starts with choosing the right spaghetti. Spaghetti made from durum wheat is the kind you should be looking for. All the pasta in our pasta shop is made from durum wheat so feel free to take a look. Hard wheat makes for a firm spaghetti that sticks together less during cooking.
Once you have purchased the correct spaghetti and the spaghetti is in the boiling water, it is important to stir the spaghetti once every minute. Keep the spaghetti moving so it doesn’t have time to stick together.
And another moment during cooking spaghetti where it often goes wrong is after draining. After draining, immediately put the spaghetti into the pan with pasta sauce. This causes the pasta sauce to adhere to the spaghetti and the spaghetti strands will not stick together.
If you keep these 3 points in mind, you will see that spaghetti will not stick together. No tricks or miracle cures. Just buy good spaghetti, keep it moving while cooking and then immediately add it to the pasta sauce.
This is how to cook spaghetti without it sticking!