The Story Of Useless Pasta Water

We’ve all eaten pasta at one time or another, and we all love to eat it in some way or another. 

When you are darn hungry, you’re thinking of ordering some food online. You tap-open some restaurant app on your phone to order food online, but it shows you the estimated delivery time of 40-50 minutes. Seeing this, you murmur to yourself in agitation, “Damn! I’ll die of hunger way before that food order reaches my doorstep. I can’t even wait for 10 minutes now. I need to eat something right now, or else I’m gonna be RIP (Rest In Peace). Apples and bananas won’t do me any good. I need something readily available or quick to cook and something that will satisfy my hunger to the fullest, and it is also tasty.”  

So, in a real desperate search for that “something to eat”, you rush to your kitchen. You open up your kitchen cabinet to look for it. And there, you find a pack of spaghetti pasta you had bought a few days ago lying on one of the shelves in the kitchen cabinet. You quickly grab it and take it out. You keep it aside on the kitchen countertop. 

Now, you quickly grab the saucepan lying in the corner of the kitchen countertop. You turn on the faucet in the sink attached to the kitchen table. You swish-swoosh the pan under the heavy flow of that faucet water. You squeaky-clean it, fill it with water and keep it aside. 

You quickly grab the lighter kept by the side of the cooktop resting on the kitchen countertop. And then, you set aflame one of the burners on that cooktop. You put that saucepan on it, and let it simmer on a high flame for 2-3 minutes. 

Now, you tear open the pasta packet. You empty that whole packet into the boiling water in the pan. In another 2-3 minutes, you notice some nice-smelling hot vapors emerging from the simmering pan. Your pasta has now been cooked.

Now, you hastily put out the flame on the cooktop burner. You quickly slide your hand into an oven mitt kept on the countertop. You pick up the hot saucepan from the cooktop, and then you strain the excess pasta water quickly into a bowl with the help of a strainer. You set that now-cooked, strained pasta in the pan aside. 

You grab the lighter again and set aflame one of the burners on the cooktop. You grab the frying pan from the kitchen dish cabinet. You put it on the cooktop’s burner stand, which you just lit up. And, you add some cooking oil to it. 

You quickly chop one onion, tomato, and green capsicum on the chopping board on the countertop. You then add all of that chopped stuff to the frying pan. 

You let it cook for a minute or two. Then you grab your pasta saucepan and empty all the steamed pasta in the frying pan. You let it cook for 2-3 minutes more. 

As your hunger intensifies, you start feeling the divine smell of pasta. You put out the cooktop burning flame. 

You quickly grab one serving plate from the dish cabinet and transfer all that heavenly-smelling, delicious-looking pasta from the pan onto the plate. 

Wait, you’re darn hungry but still not done with your pasta recipe. So now, to give it a finishing, tasty touch, you quickly take your favorite mayonnaise sauce out of the refrigerator, which is standing quietly in the kitchen corner and witnessing this desperate effort of a hungry heart. So, you add some of that cold mayonnaise to your pasta on the plate. You grab a spoon and a fork and mix it.  

And voila! You can’t wait anymore to savor it. So, you quickly pick up that plate and come outside to the dining table. You grab one chair. You sit and gobble it all up at lightning speed. Then you gulp some water from the glass already kept on the dining table. 

And now you release a satisfying, loud burp with a smile. 

Yay! you are happy now because your hunger is finally satiated.  

After browsing your Instagram and Facebook feeds for some time, you take the empty plate back to the kitchen and toss it in the kitchen sink. 

Then you see that bowl containing strained pasta water which has now simmered down. You pick up that bowl and dump all that pasta water down the sink.  

Now here comes the moral of this whole pasta recipe story. Most of us have various ways of making pasta recipes. Some of us, add veggies to the pasta. Some like to add their favorite fried chicken poppers to it. And if someone is an eggetarian like me, likes to add some scrambled eggs or a mashed omelet in it.  

No matter how we make our pasta recipe, in whichever way, most of us always boil the pasta and strain it out, and then we just toss away the pasta water as if it’s some useless entity. But do you know that pasta water also contains some healthy starch and fat nutrients? And there are many innovative ways that you can put that pasta water to nice use. 

So, here are some of the ways you can use that pasta water that you always deemed as a sheer waste: 

1. You can add that pasta water into your sauce. As you know, it contains a lot of starch, so it’ll help you thicken your sauce and also add some pasta flavor to it. You can use that sauce in your favorite vegetable or chicken recipes to make them extra tasty. 

2. You can add some chopped and boiled carrots and green peas to it and cook it for some minutes on a low flame. Sprinkle black pepper powder and some salt on it, and your healthy pasta water vegetable soup is ready to slurp on. 

3. You can add oats to the pasta water and then cook it for some minutes on a low flame. Add some cashews, almonds, and roasted peanuts to it and sprinkle some salt. And then, munch on it while it’s hot, whenever you’re feeling low on energy, you will feel reinvigorated in no time. 

4. You can also use pasta water in your chicken or vegetable broth. It’ll give it a nice creamy texture and delicious pasta flavor too.

5. The sauce made from the pasta water can also be added to your favorite noodle recipes to make them more delicious. 

So, the next time when you boil your favorite pasta and are thinking of just dumping its strained pasta water down your kitchen sink, don’t forget to try some of the above-mentioned innovative recipes to put it to delicious use, or maybe you’ll discover your own delicious ways to utilize that healthy pasta water. 

Keep innovating in your kitchen!

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