This Pasta Trick Makes Sauce Thicker And Creamier Without Butter Or Cream

Creamy pastaYou might already know that pasta water – described by some chefs as “liquid gold” – is key to a thick, glossy sauce that coats every last piece of pasta. The starch leftover from the boiling carbs remains suspended in the fluid, both binding it to your spaghetti and creating a silkier consistency than just water or sauce could manage alone.Which begs the question: is all pasta water equally good at the job?Christopher Kimball of cooking school Milk Street Kitchen argues that it’s not. “Everybody’s wrong about how much water to use when cooking pasta,” he said, stating that we should stick to less liquid for a starchier sauce. But that’s not the only method. Chef Theo Randall shared a method that Lulu Grimes, the managing editor of Good Food, has adapted into the best way to achieve creamy, thick sauce – all using water. What’s the method?On his Instagram page, Chef Randall shared that the worst thing you can do while cooking pasta is to throw away the water. Instead, he likes to cook the pasta for a little less than the manufacturer recommends – “the packet says 10 minutes, cook the pasta for three minutes less”. “When you take the pasta out, leave that pan of [pasta] water on the stove. Do not remove it,” he continued. Though it won’t be on the hob long, this’ll allow it to slightly reduce in the pot, making it thicker. Don’t drain the carbs with a colander. Use tongs to remove long pasta like spaghetti or a slotted spoon for things like penne instead.“Take that pasta out and add it to your sauce” – not back into the water, which should still be on the heat – “then get a ladle or two of the pasta water and finish off the cooking of the pasta in the sauce,” Chef Randall stated. “Keep moving that pasta so all that starch thickens up the sauce – then after three minutes, you will have a beautiful pasta.” Grimes said on her Substack that she takes this step a little further.“I like to undercook my pasta slightly, scoop out a good mugful of the water, then return the pasta to the pan with some of that liquid” rather than sitting it in the sauce.“Let it bubble until it turns a little gloopy,” reducing it even further than Chef Randall does, “then stir in your sauce – suddenly it tastes like something you’d get in a good trattoria.” Home cooks have tried (and loved) the trick Writing to r/foodhacks, site user u/SeaworthinessDry4563 shared their love of the hack.Citing Grimes’ Substack, they wrote: “Read this in a Substack on the weekend. Tried it. Can confirm it worked. Don’t ask me why or how... I’ve always saved some pasta water and stirred it back in, but never let it bubble and finish cooking like this”. Perhaps the most heartening comment, however, came from u/TrustMeBro77: “Italian here: is there another way to cook pasta?”.Related...I Tried a 2-Minute Trick To Make Porridge More Delicious, And I'll Never Go BackSo THAT's Why Restaurant Pasta Is So Much BetterI Tried A Chef's Trick To Prevent Watery Cucumbers, And My Salads And Sandwiches Have Never Been Better

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