Pasta seems easy enough, but you get so many people trying to tell you the correct way to cook it in order to get the best results. Some say to use lots of water, some say to use oil. Some people say to use very little water, some say to never oil it. Everyone thinks their method is right, otherwise, they wouldn’t do it, but only certain methods are right and some people’s methods are just completely wrong. Let’s try and answer the question – Do you cover pasta when cooking?
You’ve probably come across some people that recommend covering the pot while making pasta and also people that tell you to never cover it. To settle this once and for all, let’s take a look at which method is actually correct and why.
You should cover the pot of water while you wait for it to boil, but you shouldn’t leave the lid on while it’s boiling. Leaving the lid on will cause it to boil too much and overflow. You should keep a close eye on it when the lid is on so it doesn’t make a mess.
I’m sure that at some point in your life, you’ll have made the mistake of forgetting about a pot of water on the stove before running back to the pot as it’s boiling over and getting water everywhere. It’s a mistake that’s very easy to make if you look away for 10 seconds too long, so you should do your best to avoid it.
Best Practice For Boiling Pasta Water
When it comes to boiling pasta properly, you should keep some things in mind in order to get the best results possible. The techniques you use very much influence how well the pasta turns out, but we’re only going to talk about the most efficient way to boil pasta in this article.
Do You Cover Pasta When Cooking?
The answer is yes AND no. To get the pasta cooked in the fastest time possible, follow these steps:
- When Waiting For The Water To Boil, Cover It With A Lid
- When Boiling, Remove The Lid And Add The Pasta
- Cover The Pot With A Lid Until You Can Hear/See The Water Boiling Again,
- Remove The Lid And Adjust The Heat Until The Water Is At A Steady Boil
- Cook As Normal
You want to cover it with a lid whilst you’re waiting for it to boil so you can minimize heat loss. By doing this, you’re decreasing the amount of time it will take for the water to come to a boil.
Once the water is boiling, you need to remove the lid so it doesn’t boil over and cause a mess. Now you can add your pasta.
Once the pasta is added, it will drop the temperature of the water and therefore take it below boiling point. To get it back up to temperature as quickly as possible, the lid can be used to minimize further heat loss.
Again, you want to remove the pot lid as soon as the water gets to boiling temperature or it will boil over.
From here, it’s just like you’d normally cook pasta. You need to make sure that you’re stirring it regularly to stop it from sticking then test it for doneness.
The whole idea behind covering the pot is to get the water to boil faster, which saves you valuable time in the kitchen. Of course, you don’t need to cover the pot, but then you’re wasting energy and time.
Simple Tip: Another reason not to leave the lid on while cooking pasta is that it might cause it to overcook and result is pasta sticking together.