When cooking pasta (from dried), I currently need to add a significant amount of salt to the water to add flavour.
As the pasta itself is extremely cheap, and the water is completely free – it can at times feel like throwing money down the drain as the majority of the salty water is discarded.
Are there any effective ways to reduce the amount of salt wasted during cooking, without simply undersalting the pasta? (e.g. adding salt after the pasta has been mostly drained)
Additional notes:
-
I'm open to making fresh pasta by hand, if salt can be added at this stage rather than in the water
-
The cost of salt should be considered a constant, that is – suggesting a cheaper salt is not valid.
-
Taste/texture quality should be maintained as best as possible.
-
Reusing the salted water is not acceptable, due to space constraints.
Best Answer
It's perfectly possible to cook pasta with no salt at all, so you may be able to wean yourself onto a lower salt level, reducing it gradually.
I don't know what, if anything, you're eating with your pasta, so getting that to have more flavour might be an option.
If you're actually eating plain pasta and want it salty but as cheap as possible, the first thing you should do is cook it in as little water as possible, and with a lid. This will also reduce your fuel bills (you can reduce them still further by turning off the heat for a few minutes in the middle of cooking). If you use half as much water as before, you could start by adding half as much salt, so the concentration in the water remains the same. To a first approximation, it's the concentration that matters here.
Even if you're eating absolutely at cheaply as possible already, I'd be very surprised if you could save significant amounts of money by using less salt, and if you can, you need to consider the health implications (I won't go into more detail). Think about how much in total you spend on it, because you can't possibly save more than that.