Should you rinse pasta after you cook it?
If the water boiled over and the pasta fell on the stove, sure.
I mean after regular boiling or cooking.
You don't need to rinse most pasta. Heck, you only need to rinse it before cooking with it if it looks moldy or your kids made an art project with it before dinner.
In those cases, I'd just throw it out.
If you cooked the pasta in water with margarine or oil, you might want to rinse it to get rid of the failed flavoring. But if you cooked it in water, draining it is sufficient rinsing.
Why would someone add oil to pasta while cooking it?
That's a popular myth. The idea is that it will keep pasta from sticking to itself.
Then I need to know what works to keep my pasta from becoming hot, wet glue when I cook it.
Just stir it for the first few minutes.
I heard you're supposed to rinse pasta after cooking it.
When you rinse pasta, you rinse off the absorbent outer layer of the pasta that best soaks up the sauce. You end up with a gummy mess that you didn't have to.
And it saves on water.
And you avoid getting the strainer dirty.
I saw someone rinse pasta for use in pasta salad.
In those cases, you drain out the hot water before putting the pasta in a bowl in ice water. That prevents it from getting any softer, while retaining the spongy outer layer.
We need a Mythbusters for cooking pasta. Does this mean I shouldn't add salt to the water before cooking it?
No, adding salt usually improves its flavor.
Or really strong pasta sauce.
I suspect you're using hot sauce to make it through dinner.
