@takefoodfacts: You’ve heard the saying… pasta water should taste like the sea. But how salty is that, exactly? It’s one of the most repeated bits of cooking advice in the world. Ask an Italian chef how much salt to add to pasta water and chances are you’ll hear the phrase, “It should taste like the sea.” But here’s the interesting bit… Seawater contains around 35 grams of salt per litre. Most chefs use closer to 10 grams per litre. So if your pasta water was genuinely as salty as the sea, you’d be using more than three times the amount of salt most professionals recommend. The saying isn’t really meant to be taken literally. It’s there to encourage people not to be afraid of seasoning their cooking water. And that’s important because pasta absorbs water as it cooks. If the water contains no salt, the pasta itself won’t have much flavour. You can pour the best sauce in the world over it afterwards, but the pasta underneath may still taste bland. This is one of the reasons restaurant pasta often tastes better than homemade versions. Many home cooks either forget the salt completely or only add a tiny pinch. Another common myth is that salt helps water boil faster. Technically, adding salt actually raises the boiling point of water, meaning it has to get slightly hotter before it boils. The effect is tiny in a kitchen, so the real benefit isn’t speed—it’s flavour. A good rule of thumb is around 10 grams of salt per litre of water. That’s enough to season the pasta without turning your saucepan into the Mediterranean. So next time you’re making spaghetti, penne or tagliatelle, don’t worry about recreating the sea. Just season the water generously and let the pasta do the rest. What do you think about that

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Thursday 18 June 2026 06:37:57 GMT