My aunt told me to never rinse pasta after draining, I argued with her for years

My Aunt Rose always said rinsing pasta washes away the starch that helps sauce stick. I thought she was just being old fashioned and kept doing it anyway. Last month I made spaghetti and forgot to rinse half the batch by accident. The unrinsed noodles held onto the marinara way better and the whole plate tasted creamier. Has anyone else had a family member give them cooking advice that turned out to be totally right?

3 comments

3 Comments

viola_ward1mo ago

You said "the unrinsed noodles held onto the marinara way better and the whole plate tasted creamier" and that really got me thinking. Did you notice if the sauce actually stuck to the rinsed pasta or just slid off into a puddle on the plate? I had the same problem with my grandma's lasagna recipe until I stopped rinsing the noodles. She always said the starch is what makes the sauce cling and I thought she was just being stubborn. So I gotta ask, did the rinsed spaghetti end up dry and bland compared to the unrinsed batch? Because I wonder if rinsing actually dries out the pasta itself, not just the outside.

jackson.matthew1mo ago

Heard a chef on the radio once saying the same thing your aunt did. He said rinsing pasta is basically sabotaging all that work you did to get the water starchy. The unrinsed batch you had sounds like the real deal, the starch acts like a glue for the sauce so it coats every noodle instead of pooling up. I bet the rinsed stuff felt a little slippery too, right?

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emmag2221d ago

Oh man, see I've gotta push back on this a little. @viola_ward I actually had the opposite experience with my own pasta experiments. Rinsed my angel hair once because I was making a cold pasta salad and wanted to stop the cooking immediately, and honestly the sauce stuck just fine after I tossed it with a little olive oil first. Not saying your aunt's wrong or anything, but I think it depends on what kind of sauce you're using. Like a heavy meat sauce might need that starch glue, but a light lemon butter situation? Rinsing actually kept my noodles from turning into a sticky brick in the fridge. Your mileage may vary though, everyone's kitchen is different.