How to Reheat Pasta - Spaghetti Works

You can reheat pasta a few different ways. How you should do it is based on your comfort level, how much time you have, and how many you are feeding. We will go through a couple: one that we found to reheat at the best quality, and the other which is the quickest.

For best quality pasta upon reheating flash boiling is the way to go! The average cook time of pasta is can be anywhere from 8 to 12 minutes. So as much as we would like to cook each dish to order, a lot of people want their pasta quicker, but want it to taste like it has just been cooked. This will work if your pasta does not have any sauce on it or if you do not mind the sauce being cleared off the noodles.

Flash boiling time depends on how much water you are trying to boil, if you are boiling 2 quarts, vs 4 quarts it will take longer for the water to boil. Once the water is boiling the process is quick and painless and uniform. When flash boiling for multiple people we always suggest that do not overload your colander or strainer, do one portion at a time.

It is pretty simple, take a pot and set a colander or strainer in the pot. Then follow these easy steps:

• Fill the pot with water until it reaches about midway to the colander or strainer.
• Add some salt to the water and bring it to a boil.
• Once your water is boiling add your noodles to your colander/strainer and submerge the colander and noodles into the water until full submerged.
  • **Warning** If you don’t do this often you will want to slowly introduce your colander/strainer to the water to ensure you don’t splash the water on yourself or stove and also to ensure the pot will not overflow.
• Once the pasta is fully submerged in water you will want to wait about 30 seconds. This is a very quick reheating, so we do not recommend walking away while the pasta is submerged.
• Careful when removing the colander/strainer as it might be hot, and boiling water may be dripping from the pot, let the excess water drain off until it only has a manageable drip.
• Walk it over to the kitchen sink and give it a few hard shakes up and down to ensure the pasta is holding water in between the noodles.
• Plate it and add your sauce and your ready to eat.
  • *warning again*- you just submerged pasta in boiling water and steam is probably rolling off it, so it might be a little hot.

The quickest way by far is, you guessed it microwaving the pasta. You can do this for pasta with or without sauce. We recommend doing this if you want the pasta quick and you are serving maybe 1-2 people, took your leftovers for lunch, or just do not feel like dragging out a bunch of dishes. Here is how we recommend reheating pasta in the microwave:

• Remove pasta from zip-lock or to go container and place on a microwave safe plate. We strongly recommend using a little steadier plate if you are using paper or using multiple flimsy ones.
• If available and pasta has no sauce on it, drizzle a little olive oil on the pasta, it will help the pasta from sticking together and keep it a little moister.
• Cover and place in center of microwave and cook for 1 minute on high and let set for 15 seconds. Most people skip this step and wonder why stuff is not cooked thoroughly. Just take the extra 15 seconds.
• Remove pasta from microwave and stir thoroughly,
• If not completely warm throughout, recover and set back in the microwave and reduce cook time to between 15-30 seconds. Repeat this step until the pasta reaches your desired temperature.

Note depending on the amount of pasta cooking time may vary drastically. These instructions are designed more for a single portion of pasta.