You should never drain your pasta in the sink, here's why
Become a pasta professional
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FOOD Italian food
It is 7:30 pm on a Wednesday night and you are looking for a quick and easy meal for dinner, what is your go-to? For many people, making a large pot of delicious pasta is weekday staple!
While supposedly everyone knows how to cook pasta, you may be surprised to discover that you are doing it all wrong. Any chef or Italian grandma will tell you that draining your pasta in a colander in the sink is a total waste. By keeping the leftover pasta water, you can elevate your cooking immensely.
Pasta water is actually often referred to as "liquid gold," and should be savored rather than discarded. Cooking flour pasta in water with a bit of salt and olive oil creates a process called emulsification. If you save some of the cloudy, starchy water in the pot rather than dumping it, your casual plate of weekday pasta will be transformed into a gourmet dish!
The water helps bind the other sauce, whether it be marinara, pesto, or just Parmesan cheese, to the pasta. The result is a creamy, thick Italian dish—without watery puddles on the side of the plate.
While you may be skeptical about how much this really matters, try it for yourself! It's science, okay?