Sauce – How to avoid cooked pasta soaking up sauce when stored

pastasauce

I often make up a box of pasta (dried) with some sauce that I make from leftover ingredients for work the next day. The sauce is always either tomato or cream cheese based.

By lunch the next day, the pasta has soaked up a good amount of the excess sauce that was previously filling the base of the box. Aside from storing the pasta and sauce in two separate boxes, is there anything I can do when cooking to avoid this happening? It does not appear to be a problem in supermarket ready meals.

Best Answer

If I plan on storing my pasta in the fridge with the sauce, I take the pasta out of the boiling water and immediately rinse it in cold water. I rinse until the pasta has cooled completely. Make sure to drain it well. Afterwards, I either mix a little sauce in the pasta to help keep it from sticking or just put the sauce on top. Basically I'm trying to stop the pasta from continuing to "Cook" in the sauce.