I Always Pour My Pasta Into The Colander, But After Seeing This? Never Again.

At my house, we eat pasta several times a week—and I always do the same thing when my pasta is finished boiling: I pour it into a colander and when it’s dry, I put it on plates and pour sauce over it. While that sounds perfectly reasonable, I now realize that I’ve been doing it wrong my entire life! This Italian method (what other method is there?) shows you how to work with your pasta to get it as good and tasty as it can be. Best of all? It’s not complicated. So if you don’t want to keep making the same mistakes I was making, check this out!

Chef Andrew Carmellini knows how to get the best out of pasta.

He says pouring pasta water down the drain and dumping pasta in a colander is, well, stupid. Pasta water can actually be used later to make your dinner tastier.

It’s also foolish to flush cold water over pasta when it’s done—it washes away some of the pasta’s flavor.

A third common error is plating your pasta and then dumping the sauce on top. This will make your pasta both clump up and lose even more flavor.

What to do instead:

Scoop up your pasta and pour it directly onto your sauce. Stir it and allow it to cook in the pan for about a minute—your pasta will soak up some of the sauce.