If you ask a handful of people whether you should put oil in your pasta water you’ll get a lot of different answers. Some say it helps with the pasta not sticking together once you drain it. Others say the oil stays on top of the water and doesn’t end up having an effect on the pasta once drained. And still others have various reasons for why you shouldn’t oil your pasta water. I decided to delve into this topic starting in the kitchen with a very simple test and I certainly got some definitive results! After that, I discussed the topic with a few professional chefs who all gave me a little more insight on the topic. More on that later.
My test was simple. I boiled the same type of pasta in two different pots and added olive oil in one and not the other. I did this with two types of pasta: spaghetti and elbow macaroni. For the elbow macaroni I put in only a few tablespoons of olive oil and for the spaghetti I put in an entire half cup of olive oil (a bit overboard, I know, but I wanted to be sure to give the olive oil a chance to actually coat the pasta once drained in case a few tablespoons wasn’t enough).
Here’s what I learned.
Once drained, there is absolutely a difference between the pasta that was boiled with olive oil and the pasta that wasn’t and this was the case for both the few tablespoons of pasta in elbow macaroni and the half cup of olive oil in the spaghetti pot. I learned firsthand that the olive oil from the boiling water does coat the pasta even after you drain all the water- even just a few tablespoons in the water. You can see the difference visually, with the oiled pasta glistening more in the light while the unoiled pasta appeared more matte. You can also physically feel the difference with your hands. After grabbing some of the pasta from the oiled water, my hand was coated with oil too. When I picked up a clump of spaghetti from the oiled pot, the noodles slid right off of each other, but when I picked up a clump of spaghetti from the unoiled pot, it stayed as one big clump, sticking together in a tangled mess. Unfortunately for the people that said the oil in the water won’t do anything, they turned out to be wrong.
But the big question is: should you oil your pasta water?
One chef told me that when you’re using a cream or tomato-based sauce with the pasta you’ve boiled, you do not want to oil your pasta sauce or even use olive oil on your pasta after it’s drained to prevent sticking. Oiled pasta will cause the cream or tomato sauces to slide right off the pasta itself and you want the sauce to stick well. In this same vein, you do not want to rinse your pasta after draining either. This will rinse off the starches, also preventing the sauces from properly sticking.
Here are some tips to simultaneously prevent pasta from sticking after draining while also making sure your cream or tomato sauces will coat the pasta:
1.) Add plenty of salt to your pasta water.
2.) Stir the pasta water frequently while it’s boiling to break apart clumps.
3.) Do not oil your pasta water.
4.) Do not rinse your pasta after draining
5.) Have all of your ingredients- including the sauce you’re using- prepared before you drain your pasta. Then, dish up and serve your pasta and sauce right away. One of the reasons pasta sticks together so much after draining is because it has been sitting like that for too long. The solution is to serve your pasta right away.
Another chef I spoke to told me there can be certain reasons to oil pasta. If you’re making a pasta salad, for example, or if you’re using an oil-based sauce like pesto. Still, the chef advised that there are better ways to oil your pasta than to put oil in the pasta water. If you add the oil to the pasta after you drain it, you have more control over how much oil you’re adding and exactly how much oil will coat the pasta in the end. It will also prevent having to pour olive oil down your drain along with your pasta water, which, over time, can cause clogs in your piping.
Lastly, yet another chef told me that if you are concerned about your pot boiling over, olive oil will help prevent that. That trick does indeed work. However he still didn’t recommend doing it, and said there are better ways to prevent boil over.
So the conclusion? There really is no good reason to put oil in your pasta water after all. If you know you want your pasta oiled for something like a macaroni salad, oil it after draining. If you want to prevent boil-over, use a bigger pot, use less water, slightly reduce the heat, or put a wooden spoon over the pot to break up bubbles. And if you are using a cream or tomato-based sauce, don’t oil your pasta at all and serve up the pasta and sauce right after draining.
