Food · Advice & Questions · Oct 20

My pasta sits in the colander while I finish the sauce. How do I stop dinner becoming one sticky lump?

Food

The sauce needed "another five minutes", so I drained the pasta and left it while I chopped the last ingredients. By the time I was ready, lifting one strand seemed to lift half the colander.

My friend suggested rinsing it and adding oil. I wanted a tomato sauce that clung to the pasta, rather than another separate element to assemble at the table. [Barilla's cooking guide](https://www.barilla.com/en-us/help-with/pasta-kitchen-tips/how-to-cook-pasta) recommends draining without rinsing, reserving some cooking water and finishing the pasta in the sauce. That suggests my sequence needs attention before I buy a different shape or blame the packet.

How would you organise the final few minutes with one person cooking? I can follow each part separately, but I keep making the pasta ready before I have anywhere useful to put it.

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1 community replies

@AlixB

Work backwards from combining the two parts. Have the sauce close to ready before starting the final pasta stage, and use the timing on your pasta packet. The [Barilla guide](https://www.barilla.com/en-us/help-with/pasta-kitchen-tips/how-to-cook-pasta) describes finishing in the sauce with reserved cooking water, rather than leaving drained pasta waiting while you begin the sauce's remaining preparation.

My pasta sits in the colander while I finish the sauce. How do I stop dinner becoming one sticky lump?

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