7 things you should never do with pasta

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: seven crimes against pasta that you must prevent.

It could be that you regularly make one of these pasta mistakes, or that you read about them with us earlier and therefore never do them again in your life. But for everyone who could use a reminder, we gladly list them again: the biggest pasta mistakes that everyone makes (or made)…

Because you know: at FavorFlav we can never get enough of pasta and pasta facts. So read along and shudder, so that the next mistakes can never be blamed on you again.

Breaking pasta
Why would you? Pasta shapes have their form with an idea behind it, a purpose, and if you are no longer a toddler, you have outgrown the bite-sized pieces of spaghetti. No more of those sad half spaghetti strands, agreed? If you want small pasta, just buy small pasta. For the tastiest mac ’n’ cheese for example, although we would always buy nice thick maccheroni for that. Yum…

Oil in the water
First of all, it is incredibly wasteful to waste oil instead of using it over your pasta, where you could actually taste it. Afraid that your pasta will stick together in the cooking water? You prevent that if you also let the next crime go.

Not stirring
Walking away after dropping the pasta in the boiling water with the idea of just coming back to check in about eight minutes? Nope. That won't work. Stirring well a few times and loosening it while it cooks is important so that you don't end up with clumps of overcooked pasta. And you don't need that oil for that.

Draining and rinsing
Nooooo! Waste! Okay, we overlook draining if you first saved a good mug of the pasta water, but rinsing under cold water is really a no-go. Okay, we overlook rinsing, but only if you (the best) pasta salad want to make, but with every warm plate of pasta, you want to leave that delicious layer of starch on and not wash it down the sink.

Cooking too long or too short
Letting the pasta cook for another ten minutes after the indicated cooking time for al dente because you got distracted? I know from experience that happens… So stupid. As if you pulled it out of a swamp, so soggy. But too hard pasta is also super gross when you unsuspectingly bite into such a hard starchy core in the middle of the pasta strand. In short: pay attention.

Ladling the sauce on the pasta
Sad but true: unless you come from an Italian famiglia , this is probably still the image from the past that you have of a plate of spaghetti with red sauce. A plate full of light yellow pasta strands with a steaming pile of tomato sauce in the middle. By now we all know better: you make sauce in a sauté pan, or a roasting pan, or a frying pan with high edges; in short, whatever, as long as it is big enough to scoop up all the pasta with attached moisture and to stir. Because every pasta strand deserves a coat of sauce, not just those lucky bastards that happened to be under the sauce in the middle. Related to this: the pasta should not drown in the sauce either. Yes, it all matters, huh…

Sprinkling pre-grated cheese on top
Don't do it. Gross, dusty, musty, and such a waste to ruin your carefully crafted meal at the last moment with this stuff. You can really enjoy a small piece of Parmesan for a long time (you can even use the rind) and if you want to spend a little less, there's always good old Grana Padano; cheaper than Parmesan and also tasty. Buy such a piece, grate it yourself happily, and this way you give your pasta the finish it deserves.