Quick Tip: Cooking the Best Pasta for Cold Salad

For pasta destined for a picnic salad, we like to do two things:

1. Cook it in even more heavily salted water.
2. Cook it just a little beyond al dente.

When cooking pasta for salad, we usually double the amount of salt we normally put in the pasta water, adding roughly 4 tablespoons of salt for 4 quarts of water. We know this sounds excessive, but food actually tastes different when eaten cold than it does when hot. The flavor of a dish that was perfectly seasoned right off the stove becomes muted. For this reason, we like to be extra sure that pasta for a cool pasta salad gets well-seasoned while it cooks.

We also cook it just beyond al dente so that the pasta stays soft when it cools. Have you ever noticed how leftover pasta gets a little hard and chewy when it cools? That's fine if we're going to be reheating it in another dish later on, but not if we're planning on eating it cold.

You don't need (or want!) to cook it to mush, though. Just at the point when you would normally take your pasta off, let it cook for just an extra minute. Then run the drained pasta under cool water to stop the cooking.

And here's a bonus tip: dress the pasta salad while the pasta is still a little warm. The dressing will coat the pasta better!

(Image: Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)

the only problem with dressing the salad immediately is that it'll soak up the dressing and be dry by the time you eat it. It's a difficult balance of over dressing to compensate for that or having a dry pasta salad.

posted by chusmabilly on June 29th 2009 at 1:14pm
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What is the salad in the photo? It looks so delicious!

posted by moema on June 29th 2009 at 1:53pm
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Thanks for the reminder, Chusmabilly! I find that if I use an oil-based sauce like a vinaigrette and slightly warm (not hot) pasta, the sauce coats everything without getting too absorbed, so everything stays moist and flavorful.

And moema, that's my go-to pasta salad with cheese tortellini, caramelized onions, arugula, and apple with a balsamic vinaigrette on top. The basic recipe is in this post on make-ahead lunches.

posted by EmmaC on June 29th 2009 at 2:17pm
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As far as the soaking up dressing thing goes, I always, always dress when I'm putting everything together, but RESERVE SOME DRESSING to pour over and re-toss at serving time. Especially important with vinagrette based pasta salads.

posted by splatgirl on June 29th 2009 at 3:30pm
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If I am making pasta for pasta salad, I am particularly careful *not* to overcook it -- and to keep it from going mushy, I rinse it with cold water to wash the starch off. Once it has been rinsed cool, I find I can add the dressing without it absorbing too much.

posted by mschatelaine on June 29th 2009 at 3:40pm
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I second moema's comment, what is the salad in the photo!?! It looks too good.

posted by moo1018 on June 30th 2009 at 1:01pm
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I always heard that you should slightly under cook pasta for cold salad, especially if it's going to be sitting in dressing overnight.

posted by shlowzi on June 30th 2009 at 3:50pm
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I'm with mschatelaine--I always rinse my pasta when I'm cooking it for salad. Interesting about the overcooking suggestion; I've never found my salad pasta to be undercooked once it's dressed. OTOH, next time I'll give it a try, b/c almost anything can be made better...

posted by debbiek on July 1st 2009 at 12:02pm
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