The biggest mistake people do when they boil pasta is add oil to the water so they can avoid "sticky" pasta situations. But oil makes the sauce slide right off the pasta and prevents pasta from absorbing all the delicious flavors from the sauce. Result: two individual dishes on the same plate: pasta + sauce; instead of one heavenly meal you cannot have enough of.
Is it really so hard to stick around the oven during the time needed for the pasta to be cooked?
Manage your time.
- Once the water is boiling, it is enough just to stick around and stir the pasta until water boils again, turn the heat down a bit, set timer to 10 minutes (which is the cooking time for most dry pasta), and then just stir occasionally to prevent pasta from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
- And actually the time that it takes for the water to boil and the pasta to cook, is the same amount of time it takes to make the white sauce.
