Getting pasta right is often less about fancy ingredients and more about small habits that add up. British chef James Martin recently revisited a few rules he says Italian cooks drilled into him over the years. While making lobster pasta on his show ‘Saturday Morning’, he pointed out mistakes home cooks repeat without realizing it. The advice is simple, but it can change how your pasta tastes and how well it holds sauce.
Martin says the biggest problems start before the pasta even hits the pot. He recalls Italian friends constantly correcting the way people treat pasta water. “My Italian friends have told me all sorts of useful things over the years, and one of the most important is about cooking pasta properly,” Martin said. For him, that is the foundation that makes every other step easier.
His first rule is one that surprises people because it goes against a stubborn kitchen myth. “You don’t add oil to pasta water,” Martin stressed. Oil floats, so it does not do what many people hope it will do, and it can even make it harder for sauce to cling later. Instead, he says the real priority is salt and heat. “The most important thing is that the water is well salted and boiling,” he added, joking that his Italian friends told him the water should taste like the sea.
Timing matters too, and Martin highlighted how different pasta types demand different attention. Fresh pasta cooks quickly, usually in about 2 to 3 minutes, so you cannot walk away and expect it to be fine. Dried pasta takes longer and the timing depends on the shape and thickness, commonly around 10 to 12 minutes. Even then, many cooks push it too far because they think softness equals doneness. Martin’s approach is to treat the pot as only the first stage, not the finish line.
That leads to his second major point, which is where many restaurant dishes pull ahead of home versions. “The other important thing the Italians emphasized to me is that you finish cooking pasta in the sauce,” Martin explained. Moving pasta straight into the sauce lets it absorb flavor instead of sitting plain on a plate. It also helps the sauce coat every strand or tube more evenly. In Martin’s view, this is the step that makes a dish taste intentional rather than assembled.
He also suggests finishing touches that reinforce that Italian mindset of simple, balanced flavors. Once the pasta is in the sauce, he recommends adding fresh basil, a bit more salt if needed, black pepper, and grated Parmesan. None of those additions are complicated, but they work best when the pasta is already mingling with the sauce. It is a reminder that seasoning is not just something you do at the end. It is something you build in layers as the dish comes together.
Another voice echoed the same idea, with one extra detail that is easy to try at home. Italian chef Nima Safaei says pasta benefits from a brief pause in the sauce before you serve it. He calls it the one minute rule, and it is meant to help flavors settle and bind. “Leave the pasta in the sauce for one minute before serving it, just like you rest a steak,” Safaei said. He argues that this short wait helps everything come together so the dish tastes more rounded.
Taken together, these tips focus on control rather than tricks. Boiling, salted water gives pasta a base layer of flavor that you cannot replace later. Skipping oil keeps the surface ready to grab sauce, especially when you move the pasta straight from the pot. Finishing in the sauce turns cooking into a single process instead of separate steps. Even the one minute rest is about letting the sauce and pasta behave like one dish, not two items pushed together.
It also helps to understand why these rules work, since that makes them easier to remember. Pasta releases starch as it cooks, and that starch helps sauces cling and thicken when you combine them while everything is hot. If you treat pasta like something you cook and then rinse or coat with oil, you remove the very tools that help your sauce stick. Italian cooking often leans on this natural starchiness rather than heavy additions. That is one reason a simple sauce can taste rich when it is handled correctly.
Pasta itself has a long history across Italy, with shapes designed for different sauces and textures. Long noodles tend to pair well with smoother sauces, while ridged tubes and shells catch chunkier ingredients. The idea of cooking pasta until it is tender but still has a slight bite is commonly associated with Italian habits, because it keeps the structure and avoids a mushy texture. Serving it quickly after it has finished in the sauce helps maintain that ideal bite. If you want a more restaurant style result, focus on the water, the timing, and the sauce finish rather than searching for a secret ingredient.
What pasta habit made the biggest difference in your kitchen, and which of these tips are you going to try next? Share your thoughts in the comments.
