Pasta's One Golden Rule

by Kemp Minifie
on 02/28/14 at 11:00 AM


Whenever I cook pasta at home, I have to wait until my husband leaves the kitchen before I can salt the water for the pasta. Why? He freaks out when he sees me pour what looks to him like a mountain of kosher salt into the water. But the funny thing is that when he actually eats the pasta, he never complains that it's too salty. It tastes really good, and I'm not just talking about the sauce. Italians are obsessed with the flavor of their pasta; the sauces are there to enhance, not drown the noodles.

You've probably heard the often-repeated line that the water for cooking pasta should taste like the sea. But just how much salt is that? I recently learned a beautifully simple rule--an easily remembered ratio--from Ricardo Felicetti, the fourth generation head of Felicetti, an outstanding pasta maker located in the northern tip of Italy, near the Austrian border, in the Trentino Alto Adige region. He was at a cooking school class at La Scuola di Eataly in New York City led by the food historian and author Francine Segan, where his organic, single-grain pasta was featured.

"10-100-1000," said Felicetti. That's the ratio of salt to pasta to water. So 10 grams of salt is the right amount to cook 100 grams of pasta in 1000 milliliters of water (1000 ml = 1 liter). 100 grams of pasta is less than 1/4 pound, so to better illustrate the ratio, multiply it by 5. That comes out to 50 grams of salt for 500 grams of pasta (which is slightly over a pound), to 5 liters of water (slightly more than 5 quarts).

When measuring salt, the beauty of going by weight is that it doesn't matter whether you're using kosher salt, which has a big flake, or table salt, which is ground fine: You will always have the right amount of salt. Volume measures of the salts is a different story. 50 grams of kosher salt is slightly more than 1/3 cup. 50 grams of table salt would be significantly less.

I actually freaked out a bit when I saw all that kosher salt in the 1/3 cup measure and emailed Francine Segan. "It's what 10 out of 10 Italian pasta experts told me who I interviewed," replied Segan. "I've tried it, and I love it." So I went ahead and dissolved the salt in 5 liters of water and tasted it. Perfect, I thought. Just like the sea! And the best reason I know for investing in a scale.

Photo by Romulo Yanes

Tagged with: Italian, Kemp Minifie, Pasta
06:31:54 PM on

Fish are marinated in a 30:1000 salt solution for years, and have about 90mg of salt per 100g, which is about 3% of your daily allowance.

And people are worried about dropping pasta in a 10:1000 salt solution for a few minutes ?

A report by the Food Standards Authority shows that 100g of pasta cooked in 10g of salt yields pasta with salt levels of about 70mg/100g. Which is basically the same as 100g of cooked fish.

So if cooking pasta in a 10:1000 salt solution is unhealthy, eating fish is just as unhealthy, and you should stop eating both immediately.

06:20:04 PM on

StayingAlert, I understand your concerns, but I think you're being overly cautious and not doing the math.

50 grams of salt per 5 liters of water (roughly 5000 grams of water) is about .01 grams of salt / gram of water.

So if the entire 500 grams of pasta in the example took on the salinity of the water when cooking then that would be 5 grams of salt in the entire 500 grams of pasta.

But, 500 grams is a *huge* serving size.. recommended portions are closer to 100 grams / person. So in this case, at most, someone eating 100 grams of this pasta would be getting 1 gram of salt.

But again, that's if the pasta took the same salinity as the water *the entire way through* - not likely, in my opinion. Your pasta would taste, well, like salt water at that point.. not very pleasant.

Thus I think the amount of salt, and thus sodium, your getting from eating pasta cooked in highly salted water is completely negligible.

01:59:12 PM on

Recent SCIENTIFIC medical findings have shown that the previous recommendations for salt restriction were much lower than necessary.
In fact some extremely restrictive levels were much too low.
In the 1960s I worked for an internist who wrote an article, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, about the dangers of extreme salt restriction in cardiac/hypertensive patients. He had treated patients for adverse effects of extreme salt restriction.
FIFTY years later studies are proving he was correct.
I'm 74, have type 2 diabetes and since I began allowing myself more salt than was recommended a few years ago I have been able to omit the oral medication and have successfully controlled it with diet and exercise.
My blood pressure is also better controlled, which is very important because I also have kidney disease.
Before making any major changes, anyone with a medical problem should discuss it with their physician.

12:06:53 PM on

GOOD GRIEF PEOPLE! Get over it! Everything in moderation! How do you know how much salt she puts on other dishes?!! As far as heart disease goes, I am an RN, Italian and a cook! Enjoy life and AGAIN, everything in moderation! Food is not going to kill us, it is the media and stress that is put upon it!

11:48:06 AM on

Please excuse punctuation errors in my previous posts. They apparently resulted from an automated process, not from me. There should be an apostrophe after others, and I don't know where the ampersands (&) came from. There should have been ellipses (...) instead.

11:40:50 AM on

To Evietoo — Of course it is good to for people to cook for themselves and not rely on over-salted restaurant or prepackaged food. And I agree that not all of the salt ends up in the pasta but is instead discarded.

Although much of your post makes sense, you are wrong to dismiss the importance being aware of and of minimizing excess salt in food preparation. If you like your food excessively salted, you are free to do that. But put the salt in your own food, not in others’ food. Your preference for the higher levels of salt is no excuse for over-salting food for others, for many of whom the higher levels of salt are unhealthy. Nutrition experts have concluded that much of our preference for highly-salted food is learned from being exposed to, well … highly salted food. And we can “unlearn” this preference, although it takes time and effort, to end up with a healthier diet.

You stated, “… It’s almost impossible for a home cook to salt homemade food anywhere near the levels of prepackaged food or restaurant food …”. Can you cite a study or a reference to support that? The goal is to prepare food with a healthy level of sodium, not simply a less unhealthy level. You also stated that many people "under-salt" their food. By whose standard? Yours? Be advised that it’s almost impossible to “under-salt” food, from a nutritional point of view. Virtually all of us get plenty of sodium in our diet without adding any salt at all. Added salt level in food is simply a taste preference, not a requirement.

Please accept my apology if my comments came on a bit strong. They were meant to attract attention (and apparently they did). My message is that those who advise others on food preparation should make the effort to become nutritionally aware and should adjust that advice accordingly. When you add salt to the water when preparing pasta, the pasta absorbs much of the (salted) water. How much sodium is in a serving of your pasta? Perhaps it is OK, but you should really know this before publishing this advice widely.

Please do not dismiss the importance being aware of the amount of salt (or more specifically, the amount of sodium) in food. And do not gratuitously add salt to others’ food. This approach is not “freaking out”; it’s only common sense.

04:07:17 AM on

Wow. The people freaking out that there is too much salt in the water need to chill out. First, no where near that amount of salt ends up in the final dish. You cook the noodles in it -- you don't drink it. Second, too many people at home way under-salt their food because of hysteria like in these comments. It's almost impossible for a home cook to salt homemade food anywhere near the levels of prepackaged food or restaurant food, especially chain restaurants. So instead of admonishing the home cook for using salt -- which if they don't, will make them think that prepackaged or restaurant food is just inherently better -- be glad that they are cooking for themselves and their families. Homemade food is much, much healthier for everyone, even when they season their dishes, as they should.

11:26:13 PM on

Jquest (comment above) is correct. You are using WAY too much salt. As a physician, I'm telling you you are exposing people to harm. So stop it. If you want to add all of this salt to you own food, go ahead. Use the salt shakier at the table for you own food, but leave the salt out of the food for the millions of people who already have heart disease and high blood pressure plus the millions of others who will develop these diseases. Adults should limit their daily sodium intake to 1,500 mg of sodium, corresponding to 3.75 grams of salt. That's for the whole day. You show poor judgement , or perhaps you are just nutritionally not well-informed, when you recommend 2 grams of salt in just one part of one meal.

Please pay attention to nutrition guidelines and health issues when making recommendations. Thank you. (From retired M.D.)

10:13:51 PM on

This is my pet peeve with cooking: the ridiculous amounts of salt used. 50 grams for 5 servings? So that's 10grams a serving? I realize your pasta will not absorb all 50 grams, but 1 human is only suppose to get around 2g of sodium a day. I sound crazy, but salt kills. Heart disease is a serious issue in America. I really wish chefs would be a bit more ardent about this topic. But I'll get off my soap box now :)

06:15:51 PM on

When I'm making pasta I use evoo and kosher salt which I add to my boiling water the only time I use evoo in my pasta water is when I'm making a white sauce using evoo and chicken stock I cook to my own tastes and only look to noted chefs for new ideas or inspiration.thanks for letting me offer my views .

05:12:10 PM on

I meant Ina Garten says to put oil in the cooking water. Sorry.

05:11:32 PM on

And .... NEVER put oil in the cooking water or on the pasta before you put on the sauce...which you should mix with the pasta in the cooking pan.
Ina Garten always says this and it infuriates me.

05:06:05 PM on

Also, remember to wait until the water is boiling before you add the salt or you can pit your precious cookware! And don't rinse! Leave those little starch molecules on the outside of the pasta so the sauce has something to cling to. Worried about sticky pasta? Save some cooking water...problem solved and oil not needed!

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