Sticky Spaghetti Noodles
After I cook my noodle then drain them,I put them back in the pot..they then get sticky..What can I do about this.
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12 Comments:
Toss them with sauce, starch congeals.
JerzeeTomato at 9:46PM on 04/25/09
If you don't want to sauce them right away (sometimes I don't time things correctly and my noodles are done too early), toss with olive oil.
plantainsandkimchi at 10:43PM on 04/25/09
I rinse pasta with cold water in the colander, drain and toss them with a little oil.
yayfood at 11:12PM on 04/25/09
If I'm not adding sauce, I toss with a little olive oil or butter. Also, with leftover refrigerated pasta of any kind...you can shock them back into reality by dowsing in boiling water for a few minutes.
lamora at 12:03AM on 04/26/09
I also put a little olive oil on them.
pjracz10 at 1:46AM on 04/26/09
The only problem with tossing pasta with olive oil or butter after draining is that if you are going to put sauce on them, the sauce will not stick to the pasta. Work on your timing. Otherwise before the pasta is done, shock it in plenty of cold water, wait for your sauce to catch up and then finish cooking the pasta to your liking in the pasta water then immediately toss the pasta with the sauce.
Pavlov at 8:03AM on 04/26/09
No olive oil...toss with the sauce. Even better, take them out of the water a little before they're actually done and finish cooking them in the sauce. They won't stick, and they'll absorb some of the flavor from the sauce.
cycorider at 9:20AM on 04/26/09
If saving them for later, or using in a cold salad, run the cold water over them like yayfood suggested. If eating them hot and immediately, I run the hot water over them so the butter still melts!
mmclau28 at 12:16PM on 04/26/09
When making pasta for immediate consumption or use, I Reserve 1-2 cups of the pasta water before straining. Right before I am ready to use the pasta, I pour the reserved water over the pasta in the colander and give it a good toss. This re-separates the noodles without washing the starch away.
Rinsing in cold water or oiling/buttering is fine for some uses....but can cause the sauce to slide off of the pasta....the starch is in part what makes a sauce stick.
2qrs at 8:34AM on 04/27/09
running them under water-whether cold or hot will not only remove the starchy pasta water that helps thicken the sauce, it will make the sauce runny and watery because the noodles will still be wet.
timing, finish cooking in sauce or olive oil/butter depending on what you're using the pasta for.
dmarina at 3:05PM on 04/27/09
What dmarina said. The only time it's ok to rinse your pasta in water is when you're making a cold noodle salad. Sorry, this is one of the few cooking rules with no wiggle room.
Kerosena at 11:18AM on 04/28/09
2qrs THANK YOU. I don't know why the hell I never thought of that before...
alosha7777 at 12:16AM on 05/03/09