Figured out I'd been salting pasta water wrong for 12 yrs thanks to a line cook in Baltimore

Nathan Burns · 2026-10-11T06:55:04.593833+00:00

So I was working a pop up dinner in Baltimore about 6 weeks ago and this line cook named Dez watched me dump salt in the pasta pot and just started laughing. He asked me if I was seasoning the water or seasoning the pasta. I said, both I guess? He pulled out a little scale and showed me he does 1.5 percent salt by weight, so for 4 quarts of water that's about 28 grams. Nobody ever taught me that number in 12 years of cooking. I was just doing the old handful and eyeball thing, which meant some nights the pasta came out flat and some nights it was like eating ocean water. Dez said he learned it at a spot in Philly and now they never adjust the sauce for salt because the pasta itself carries it. Tried it at home on Sunday with a box of rigatoni and the difference was nuts, like the pasta actually tastes like something on its own. Anyone else get taught the pinch and pray method or did you all learn the actual ratio somewhere?

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Figured out I'd been salting pasta water wrong for 12 yrs thanks to a line cook in Baltimore | Chefs - Guest Forum