Whenever I boil pasta (specifically spaghetti), it always sticks to itself before I'm ready to use it. What can I do to avoid this without it becoming mushy (which happens if I keep it in the water)?
Of course, if I happen to have the sauce done by the time the pasta is ready and am ready to serve it, I can immediately add the sauce and it's a moot point. But I inevitably screw up the timing and have the pasta sitting there cooling, and then it becomes impossible to separate...
Italian here :) I know that the oil is a well known trick everywhere ... but Italy. The main problem about pasta is that people just tend to cook it too much. The cooking time for pasta should be between 8 and 12 minutes, above this number it will be sticky. Spaghetti is the quickest kind of pasta to get ready, so just cook it around 8-9 minutes and it won't stick.
A better solution is to fix your timing issues by cooking the pasta later. Put the water on to boil before your sauce is done, but don't actually put the pasta in until the sauce is ready to go. Then, lower the heat on the sauce to keep it warm as the pasta cooks (which is only about 8 to 12 minutes, depending on the thickness and cut).
I also add a small amount of sauce to the pasta before serving it, which helps keep things loose once I've plated.
Additionally, as with most things, price makes a difference. Getting higher quality pasta will have an effect on the stickiness of the end product.
Just follow these recommendations (Italian here):
Bonus advice:
If you need to add sauces that need to be warmed, you could cook your pasta "al dente" and finish its cooking with your sauces inside a big pan.
You really don't need oil to keep your pasta from sticking.
The water that you used to cook in has a lot of starch in it from the pasta. When you go to drain your pasta, you can reserve a small bit of the water you cooked your pasta in. When the time comes to serve, simply pour and stir the reserved water over the sitting pasta. Not only does this help prevent stickiness, but it also warms your pasta again after sitting for 5-6 minutes, or however long you wait to serve your meal.
After draining it, mix in a little oil, that should prevent it from sticking.
twist the bunch of spaghetti slightly before putting it into the boiling the water. This way they will fall apart and do not stick together.
Also stir the pasta in the first two minutes of cooking (see).
If my spaghetti has been sitting in the colander (usually in the sink) and has begun to stick, I just turn the hot tap on a bit and stir it up. Seems to unstick it easily enough.
Cooks Illustrated ran an article on this a long time ago. Their trick, which I used regularly with great success for fresh pasta is to use lots of water. For a pound of pasta they used four quarts of water. They also added salt to the water, but no oil. Oil changes nothing but the flavor. Stir during cooking also to help prevent any sticking.
If you are working with fresh pasta that has been coated with flour while making it to prevent the fresh pasta from sticking to itself, make sure to rinse your pasta after cooking while in the colander to prevent it from becoming a gluey mass.
I usually add just a tablespoon of my sauce to the pasta.
One more thought: if you are making your own fresh pasta, be fairly generous in the amount of flour you toss it in while it is waiting around before you boil it. This will dry out the surface a bit and reduce sticking when you add it to the pot. Shake off most of the excess flour before adding it to the pot.
If you have to add oil, either your pasta is not good enough or you are cooking for too long. Use Barilla if you can.
A good explanation from Barilla's website
Do not add oil to the water.
Olive oil does nothing for the taste of pasta. Barilla uses premium ingredients to guarantee the pasta's superior quality and performance. When poor-quality wheat is used, the pasta releases too much starch and sticks together causing the need for oil. This is not the case with Barilla® pasta.
Here are some of the notes I took at college about cooking pasta. I use these techniques in the workplace quiet often. It applies to dehydrated and fresh pasta.
At home you can skip the last two steps if you are serving immediately. The really important point here is that sticking pasta is caused by:
And that you add the oil after the pasta has been cooked to stop it sticking. Adding oil to the cooking water has no desirable effect.
In looking at this question again, it's specifically about dealing with the pasta being done before the sauce is.
The easiest technique is just to pull the pasta a minute or two before it's fully cooked, and then finish it the last few minutes in with the sauce, which will help to re-warm it, too.
If the sauce is already done, and you've fully cooked the pasta, but need to hold them both for a while, you can also just toss a little bit of sauce in with the pasta to help to lubricate it. It doesn't take a whole lot, just enough to coat the strands lightly, not so much that you'd leave it dripping in sauce.
If you want good results, you have to toss the pasta with oil or sauce very soon after you take it out of the water. I'd only use oil if oil and parm is your sauce (a little butter is good too), as oil will prevent your sauce from sticking to the pasta.
You could rinse the starch off, but you'll be sacrificing flavor and the sauce might not stick (I'm not sure). Chef Hubert Keller did this on Top Chef Masters (with cold water, in a shower), but he was in a rather unique situation. I wouldn't recommend it if you can avoid it.
If you're having timing issues, wait till the sauce is done before you drop the pasta. You should be able to hold the sauce at low temperatures for a while (cheese sauces can be tricky, if they get too hot, they break). Mario Batali recommends pulling the pasta 1-2 minutes early and finish cooking it in the sauce.
The problem of adding oil is that you want your pasta to absorb the sauce so that each mouthful has the full flavor. Adding oil coats the pasta with the oil and prevents the sauce from being absorbed. In addition to the previous answer of using quality pasta, I would recommend adding a ladle of the sauce to the pasta as soon as possible, then stirring to coat as much pasta as possible. You can also try reserving a cup or two of the pasta water when you drain it and adding it to the pasta when you see it's starting to clump.
To keep pasta from sticking, stir it for the first couple minutes of cooking. The sticking is due to the starch that is released during the first stages. Adding oil will make it impossible for your sauce to stick to the pasta.
A couple References:
Serious Eats article (under "A Sticky Situation").
My answer will be slightly off-topic, as the question is "how to prevent the phenomenon" rather than "how to fix it", but in my experience the best course of action is to add a little bit of water and drain just before serving if you want your pastas to not be a sticky mess. It just works perfectly, whereas with all preventive tricks you will still experience some mild stickiness.
By adding water, mixing and draining before using the pastas, what happens is that you once again dissolve the starch that was gluing everything. If you leave it to dry it will stick again, but serve immediately (or add sauce) and the starch won't have time to do its sticky business.
Cooked pasta has a layer of sticky starch on it, when it cools down, it will make it stick to whatever is adjacent to it. If it's pasta, the pasta will stick together. If you add oil, the pasta will not stick to itself, but on the other hand, you'll get a bunch of oil on the pasta, not very nice!
The proper way is to add your sauce to the pasta immediately, making the sauce stick to the pasta. This serves two purposes:
The pasta doesn't stick to itself.
You get yummy sauce sticking on the pasta, otherwise, the sauce and the pasta will become "separate".
I would also add that over the last year or so I've started to cook pasta with just enough water to cover the pasta itself (not the vast amounts I always see being used) - after stirring it initially on a lowered flame, slow boil, the sticking together problem has disappeared....
According to this answer you could add a little lemon juice to the water to make the pasta less starchy, and so less stickier
To avoid the problem of a too cooked pasta, add some drops of lemon juice in the water. Any food acid would have the effect to avoid the pasta absorbs too much water, and gets a glue-like aspect.
The best advice I have is to not overcook it. I used to overcook my pasta way past al dente. If the pasta doesn't have a slight chew to it when you strain it, you've cooked it too long. The pasta turns mushy once its past al dente causing it to stick to itself.
Adding oil to the water may help prevent foaming, but not much else. It doesn't prevent the pasta from sticking. See this article on cooking pasta (linked in answers to a few other questions already):
You may add a little oil (olive) to the boiling water, and just keep stirring the spaghetti while it boils. Oil will stick to the pasta while boiling and keep it from sticking, but the most important thing is the stirring.
I used to do the same thing a few years ago. I was taught by someone with more skill than me that it is pointless to add oil to the water. Sure enough, I don't use oil now and I cannot tell the difference. Stirring the pasta (especially in the first couple of minutes of cooking) is what keeps it from sticking together.
On a side note: I have read that cooking beyond al dente and rinsing the pasta afterwards both contribute to nutrient loss. I was taught to stir a tiny amount to butter into the pasta immediately after straining to keep it from sticking and to lock in the nutrients.
I think it has to do with the region.I made sauce and spaghetti last night and you could cut it like cake.I went back home to Texas last Oct and made spaghetti there, it was loose and not sticky.For me I say it is the altitude,humidity or who knows? Update: I just tried something else that worked very well for me.I cooked a serving of spaghetti noodles for 2 that turned out just right.It came to me that our city water is so bad that we have our drinking water delivered every month so may be it is the water.So.I used bottled water to make a batch using a cheaper brand of pasta.It turned out beautifully,separate and not sticky at all.I let it cool down and it is still just right.I solved my sticky problem and hope it would work for anyone else that needs help.I guess it is the region in a way because we have good water where I am from in Texas.
Many home cooks use a pot far too small for the quantity of pasta they cook. You should cook the noodles so they can swim freely, at least 5 qts per pound of pasta. Also, overcooking noodles makes them sticky and then stick to each other after draining.
Just cook the pasta a couple minutes later. I can't think of a sauce that couldn't sit there for a couple of minutes while the pasta finishes, should you mess up the timing. Even reduced cream sauces, you can always add a little pasta water should the sauec over-thicken.
You can use a little olive oil in the water, and it is not full of calories. In fact Evoo is good fat. Next if you want the pasta sauce to stick to the pasta, keep a bit of the pasta water after, drain it and pour back in the water and mix in sauce. Also, the pasta that is pre-packaged in the deli section is major easy to cook. Boil the water, when it boils you'll add the pasta. Usually it cooks really fast. Just watch it, and certain ones will boil and lay on top of the water. Done. Taste is also the best way. Happy Cooking, Ciao!
I am a 65 year old that has cooked more than 50 years and can tell you that region makes a big difference in if your spaghetti is sticky or not.I have tried all the tricks and use Barilla pasta but nothing makes a huge difference in Illinois.It has to do with the wheat used in making the pasta noodles.I do say Barilla is less sticky than others but a good boil to the water and stirring is the best answer to the sticky pasta issue. I never had this problem in Texas but it is a big issue here for me since I married an Italian who loves his pasta and red gravy.Just as making my famous buttermilk biscuits here.If using any other flour than the one I have trouble finding here my biscuits are no more than hard clods of dough.I say it is all in location.Just use salted boiling water to cook pasta and stir at start several times to lessen the stickiness.
