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The days of drowning a plate of naked pasta in endless ladles of sauce should, in theory, be long gone. You're probably already tossing your freshly drained pasta in a pot with just enough of your sauce to lightly coat the noodles. You might even be tossing the pasta and sauce in a warm skillet with a few spoonfuls of pasta water to help make the sauce extra clingy and silky. But why stop there?
After all, since it's the pasta water's starch that helps make the sauce so silky, why not increase the starchiness of that pasta water even more? Tossing a heaping handful of semolina flour (the same flour that dried pasta is made from) into the pot before dropping in your pasta will make your pasta water way starchier than it would be otherwise. Add a few spoonfuls of this super-charged pasta water to your pan of pasta and sauce, and restaurant-caliber silkiness will be yours.
Even better? This trick works with any kind of sauce, whether it's brothy, buttery, oil-based, or classic tomato. To pull it off, toss in the semolina into the pasta pot as described above, and then make sure to reserve at least a half cup of that starchy pasta water before draining the pasta a minute or two before it's perfectly al dente. Another option: Use tongs (for long strands like spaghetti) or a spider (for short pasta like penne) to transfer the almost al dente pasta from the boiling water directly into the pan, and then add a few spoonfuls of pasta water straight from the pot.
Now it's time to simmer that starch. Bring the pasta, sauce, and pasta water to a simmer in that skillet, and then, using tongs or a wooden spoon, toss the pasta (or if you’re a confident pro and have mastered that jerky pan-flip movement, this is the moment to deploy that trick). Tossing or flipping folds all three elements together much in the same way whisking oil and vinegar brings them together to make a vinaigrette. But we both know that the end result is way more addictive than any salad.
