Part of the Valente’s Let’s Get Cooking Series

Italian cooking is all about simplicity. Our goal? To minimize your time spent in the kitchen and maximize satisfaction for your tastebuds. 

Directions

The Set-Up

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a rolling boil. In the meantime, pour sauce into a medium sized frying pan and heat up on medium-low setting.

 Adding the Pasta

Once water reaches a rolling boil, add pasta, stirring occasionally. Cooking time will vary depending on thickness of pasta. For thinner pastas like spaghetti, fettuccine, or linguine, cook for about 2-3 minutes. Thicker pastas like pappardelle require roughly 4-5 minutes. Stuffed pastas will cook for about 5 minutes, or 15-30 seconds after they float to the surface. 

Combining the Sauce

Using a slotted spoon, transfer pasta into frying pan with sauce. To ensure pasta is coated with sauce, use a c-shaped motion and jerk the pan down and upwards so that the pasta hits the lip of the pan and flips the pasta. Add a few tablespoons of the starchy pasta water to further combine the sauce with the pasta. At this point add any grated cheese if desired.

Finishing Touches

Transfer to bowls for serving and top with fresh herbs or more grated cheese.

I hope you found this easy, or as they say in Italian, molto simplice!  If you still can’t get it just right, just keep practicing. Rome was not built in a day, and neither is your best dish of pasta. In the midst of your practice, stop in and order a dish from us to channel your inner-Italian and to reward your hard work in kitchen.