Salt Your Pasta Water Like the Sea
The single biggest upgrade to your pasta is not a fancy sauce. It is a tablespoon of salt you are probably skipping.
Pasta absorbs water as it cooks, and whatever is dissolved in that water seasons the noodle from the inside out. Salt it timidly and you get bland strands that no amount of sauce can rescue at the end. The old Italian rule, that the water should taste like the sea, is not poetry. It is a measurement you can taste.
Aim for roughly one to two tablespoons of salt per gallon of water, added once the water boils and before the pasta goes in. Do not worry that the noodles will turn salty. Most of that salt stays in the pot and goes down the drain. What clings to the pasta is just enough to wake it up.
While you are there, save a cup of that starchy water before draining. A splash tossed into the pan with your sauce emulsifies it into something glossy that hugs every strand. Two free ingredients, salt and starch, and your weeknight pasta starts tasting like a trattoria.
