Pasta & Noodles

Chinese noodles have become an integral part of Chinese regional cuisines, and they have evolved over the years.

A versatile ingredient, its unique flavors and consistency is great in soups, salads, and more.

Plus the best sauce to pair with each.

Here's the absolute best way to freeze lasagna.

If you thought mac and cheese couldn't get better, think again.

It's supposed to make your ramen broth taste like it's been simmering for hours.

It's part science, part magic.

Traditional shirataki noodles are pretty much the perfect food for those who may have food allergies or are on special diets; they're vegan, gluten-free, and keto-friendly.

There's a whole world of delicious (and approachable!) techniques and ingredients out there.

Beyond sauce!

The verdict is in. We've been cooking pasta all wrong.

Quit throwing that magic water down the drain!

How boring is it that I learned the secret to making perfect pasta in Italy? Yes, fresh made pasta is amazing, and no, that’s not the technique I’m about to share with you. (Now that you know I’m not going to talk about fresh made pasta, are you a) disappointed, b) disgusted, or c) totally excited, because pasta should be easy?) My friend’s Italian husband Peldi taught me the five steps to a perfect bowl of pasta: Use the biggest pot you have.

Obviously, pizza.

Here's why you should keep both on hand.

Making such a basic pasta seems like it should be easy, but there’s a lot that can go wrong.

I'm a culinary school graduate, a food editor, and a cookbook author, and I *still* learned a ton.

See you later butter and cream.

Try these! You may find a new go-to noodle.

Make pasta more delicious — and have it ready when you are — without boiling.

Did your pasta turn into a giant sticky ball? We can help.

Whoa!

A recent Reddit thread unearthed a pasta-cooking hack courtesy of Alton Brown — and it’s going to turn your life around.

Fresh udon noodles are thick, chewy, and delicious. Frozen udon noodles are very nearly as good. But dried udon noodles cooked like spaghetti in boiling water are notoriously sub-par. If dried is all you have access to, don’t give up hope! We recently learned of a different kind of cooking technique that might help!In How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman describes a way of cooking dried udon that we’d never heard of before.

We picked up this tip in a blurb at the end of a recipe in one our favorite cookbooks, A New Way to Cook by Sally Schneider:If you simmer beans in an uncovered pot, they will end up firmer and more intact. This perfect for dishes where you really want the beans to keep their shape without smooshing, like salads and pasta dishes.Beans simmered in a pot with the lid on but slightly ajar (which is how we normally do it) will end up much creamier, though more delicate and likely to break apart.

In these days of “fresh is better,” wouldn’t it seem like fresh pasta would be preferable to dried pasta? After all, fresh pasta is often locally-made and uses, well, fresh ingredients, while dried pasta is shipped over long distances and has been sitting on shelves for an unknown period of time.But not so–like red and white wine, like soft and hard cheeses, like the West Coast and the East Coast, neither kind of pasta is superior to the other.

We certainly do love our pasta around here and we’re always on the lookout for new ways to jazz up our humble dishes. This pipette-shaped pasta recently appeared on our grocery store shelves, and we’ve quickly decided it’s our top choice for the coming cold season dishes!Their shape is somewhat similar to macaroni, but the tube is wider and actually dips down in the middle like the pipe it’s named after.

Al Dente; adjective, Italian: Literally, “to the tooth.” In practice, this means cooked just enough to still be firm, where the center still remains a bit under-cooked and the pasta still offers resistance when chewed.In medieval times, pasta was cooked for an hour or more until it was soft, mushy, and offered no resistance. This was typical of all cooking at the time (ie, cooking food to death!

You’ve heard us say it again and again: always cook pasta in a large amount of well-salted boiling water until al dente. But when it comes to pasta salads that will be served cold or room temperature, we’ve actually started taking a slightly different approach.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.

As kids, a bowl of mac and cheese just seemed to taste better if the pasta was in the shape of our favorite cartoon character. As adults…well…we still love pasta that comes in silly shapes! What about you?Besides the fun shapes, we actually really like the texture of pasta like this. Because all the little corners and joints take a bit longer to cook, the outside parts get really soft. Every bite is a little squishy and a little chewy!

Some of us probably learned the hard way that it’s a good idea to stir pasta once or twice after dropping it in the boiling water – a congealed hockey puck of half-cooked pasta is not generally what we intended for dinner! But have you ever wondered why this happens? Or why it’s a good idea to stir pasta?The way we see it, stirring pasta is a good idea for two reasons. First of all, dried pasta has a tendency to sink to the bottom of the pan right after you add it.

We never even considered milling our own grain until we started doing a lot more multi-grain baking and cooking. Those quinoa and spelt flours get expensive! It sure would be nice to buy the whole-grains or nuts for these flours in bulk and grind them ourselves at home. Do any of you do this?We’ve been using our food processor to do some very basic milling. Pour in the nut or grain, give it a few good pulses, and manage to get a fairly decent flour.

If you ever need a reminder why salting the pasta water is key to good pasta, just wait until you forget to do it.I know because this is exactly what happened to me the other night. I took one bite of that pasta and thought my tastebuds had gone berserk. Talk about bland, boring, and tasteless noodles. Bleck.But other than eating a mistake like this and moving on, what can you do? Pim of Chez Pim has a very clever idea.

Seeing as how I constantly seem to have little containers of leftover pasta living in my fridge, I’m also constantly on the lookout for new ways to use them up. Frittatas and fritters are recurring favorites; here are four new additions to the list.1. Pasta Bakes – Whether I have a cup or a pound of pasta, cooked noodles are a great way of rounding out a pantry-clearing casserole.2.

Having mastered basic homemade pasta dough, we’ve started experimenting with various add-ins, from roasted vegetable purées to herbs and spices. Often times, these noodles are so pretty and flavorful that they hardly require a sauce. (On a weeknight, we’ll just toss them with olive oil and maybe a little cheese.) Flavored pastas also make fantastic gifts. Here are a few ideas…Unless otherwise noted, these ingredients may be added along with the eggs.

Plus, three grocery-store brands that actually taste good.

When you order pasta at a fancy restaurant, chances are it’ll come to you plated perfectly — swirled in a little mountain of noodles, basically tailor-made for Instagram. But how do restaurants do this? Long pasta can be tricky to work with without sauce splashing all over the rim or errant noodles escaping. Turns out there’s an easy way to avoid all of that if you follow a simple (and smart!) method.

Watching cooking competitions on television like Chopped is one thing, but actually being in a real kitchen stadium and seeing, smelling, and even tasting what the chefs are making? File that under amazing. I just attended the Barilla Pasta World Championship in Milan, Italy, and saw 18 chefs from around the world compete in the ultimate carb-cooking contest. The championship is the Olympics in pasta cooking, complete with lots of patriotic flag waving and a gold trophy for the winner.

We know: You already make pretty good lasagna. But what if you could make it wildly better? We’re talking the difference here between lasagna and ah-mazing lasagna. Now you’re listening? We’ve come up with a list of five things you need in order to make this happen. Some items on the list are little gadgets that’ll make a big difference, while others are straight-up tips. Try some of these out and let us know how it goes.

If you’ve never made homemade pasta before, you might assume that it’s a lot of work and just opt for the boxed stuff instead. At least, that is, before you find out that all it takes is two ingredients (flour and eggs), a little elbow grease, and a sense of humor. Allow me to explain.

I’m about to have a whole mess of fragmented spaghetti noodles for lunch, and the reason why is super dorky. No, not dorky — educational. When the Kitchn staff got wind that researchers at MIT were testing the long-held scientific theory that it is impossible to break a spaghetti noodle neatly into two halves, our hubris got the best of us. Of course it’s possible to break spaghetti into two pieces — just watch us! And we did.

I first started haunting HomeGoods for the cookware. After nabbing a Staub cast iron grill pan for half price, I was hooked. I’d start planning my routes around town to pass by the store so that I had an excuse to run in and check the current selection. Eventually, I also discovered the other departments, particularly the food section, and now the discount housewares store is actually one of my favorite grocery shops.

We all know the best place for macaroni and cheese is in one’s mouth, but how we get it there is a matter of some debate. Do you use a fork or a spoon? The nation appears to be divided. There are YouTube videos and Reddit threads devoted to the “right” way to eat macaroni and cheese, and now cult-favorite brand Annie’s has conducted a nationwide survey to figure out what utensil people prefer to use when eating one of the most delicious dishes on the planet.

“Resting time” in recipes is the bane of my existence. I’m a big fan of instant gratification, and I’m constantly forgetting to leave time for things like letting the meat rest or waiting for the cake to be completely cool before attempting to frost it. My puddings are always full of little fingerprints because I’m constantly poking them to see if they’re set yet, even though the recipe says they’ll need another three hours.

These are the game-changers that will give pasta night the boost you didn't know it needed.

Here's my go-to method.

As a parent, I love pasta more than I ever thought possible. I keep plenty in the pantry and it solves many dinner (and lunch, and occasionally breakfast) dilemmas. Got a picky eater? Pasta. Trying to introduce a new food? Pasta. Just need a dinner that everyone will love so the dinner table is quiet? Pasta! There is a subtle art to making a pasta dinner that is tasty enough to satisfy grown-ups without alienating tiny diners.

When you cook up perfectly tender, creamy macaroni and cheese in the slow cooker, it can feel you’ve won the dinner Olympics. You’ve got a dinner everyone will love while the slow cooker did all the work. Pasta in the slow cooker has a few pitfalls, though — it can either be undercooked or overcooked, depending on just a few subtle changes. These three tips will protect you from sad slow cooker pasta and make you a champion of dinner once again.

Pasta is often thought of as an easy dinner for four or more people. But it’s a little annoying for just one or two, since most recipes make a large amount and it’s a bit of pain to pull out just enough spaghetti for one person from the box. “Make the whole recipe and have leftovers!” the crowd says. Well as much as my husband and I love pasta, we don’t actually want to eat what’s left of it for the whole rest of the week.

For as long as I’ve cooked pasta, I’ve cooked it just like everyone else — bring a pot of water to a boil, dump in noodles, cook until al dente, drain, and toss in the sauce of choosing. Things were going along swimmingly (I was eating great pasta at home) until I learned I could be eating even better pasta.

Pasta is the fall-back dinner I keep in my meal plan. Beyond the obvious selling points of being quick, simple, and inexpensive, it’s one more way to get more veggies on the table and clean out the fridge. But I don’t just open a jar of sauce and call it a night. With a few basic guiding steps and smart tips, I know I can transform an assortment of bits and bobs into a simple and delicious restaurant-style weeknight pasta — no jar of pasta sauce in sight.

Please don't try to substitute one for the other.

You’ve been making pasta for yourself since college or maybe even high school or earlier, right? You probably have a million (or at least a dozen) pasta dishes in your repertoire that you can make without even thinking about it. What if you’ve been making one big mistake this whole time, though?

How often do you introduce new foods to your kids? If I’m being completely honest, my family falls into these deep seasonal ruts with dinner vegetables and it looks a lot like us eating broccoli once a week from January through April. Then when the markets overflows with radishes, spring greens, and asparagus, I want to go wild with new (or forgotten) vegetables. It can be frustrating to see tiny noses turn up at vegetables they loved last year but haven’t seen in months.

Pasta seems like an easy thing to cook — boil, drain, sauce, done — but like any other simple food, making boxed pasta can be complex. We hear the same pasta strictures on repeat: Salt the water (it should taste like the sea), don’t break the spaghetti, don’t simply ladle on the sauce. You get the idea. Here’s a roadmap for navigating the pitfalls of pasta. In the end, great pasta is both simple and complex — and getting there is pretty easy.

Shoot for this, and you're already on your way to eating more healthfully.

I am constantly looking for ways to use up the extra-large batches of hummus I make or the tubs I buy on sale at the grocery store. Sure, I can confidently polish off a fair share with pita chips or crackers as a mid-afternoon snack, but there’s always some left over that needs using. When our Associate Food Editor, Meghan, clued me into her favorite (but most surprising!) way to use hummus, I didn’t believe her until I tried it. Now I am a convert.

Making Martha Stewart’s mac and cheese instead of the mac and cheese I grew up eating at Thanksgiving isn’t something I’d do if I was home for the holidays. My brothers would sulk, my mom would be forlorn about it, and I’m not quite sure my dad would notice. But for my first Friendsgiving, there was only one recipe that would do if I wanted to make a mark. I had to bring Martha Stewart’s mac and cheese.

Of all the comfort foods that exist in this world, it’s hard to beat macaroni and cheese. What’s not to love about noodles bathed in a rich, creamy, cheese sauce? And yet gummy versions or dry, chalky versions are out there, and I firmly believe life is too short to endure them. There are a handful of secrets to avoid these travesties, leaving you to enjoy all the decadent goodness you so desire. Here are five things to always remember when you make mac and cheese.

It’s hard to beat the level of comfort provided by a pasta dish that’s coated in a heavy cream sauce, like fettuccine Alfredo or penne alla vodka. That kind of dish is really more of a once-in-a-while meal for some, or not an option for others depending on their dietary choices, but that doesn’t mean creamy pasta dishes can’t be on the weekly roster.