This Quicker Way to Cook Pasta Starts with a Surprising Step

Noodles are everywhere right now, from the TikTok ramen to Giada's line of ritzy new pastas. Noodles even took a spot on the coveted Whole Foods Food Trend report for 2024.

"They bring such a level of comfort and happiness...I think there’s a ton of room for noodles and pasta across multiple trends," says Michael Sabrin, principal product developer for Whole Foods Market’s Exclusive Brands team. "Buckwheat, putting the plant back in plant-based, and even little luxuries," he says of the many ways noodles fit into the store's predicted trends for the coming year.

But how to get those trends into your kitchen quickly enough for dinner in 15 minutes is another story—until now. There's an online hack making the rounds that will save you so much time, you'll be pretty impressed with yourself (and your family will, too).

Instead of heating up a huge pot of pasta water, you just cook your noodles in a skillet full of cold water in 20 minutes. Intrigued? I was too, which is why I gave it a try. Here's what happened.

Related: Giada De Laurentiis' New Pasta Is Selling Out. I Tried it To See if it's Worth $10 a Box

What is the cold water pasta hack?

The cold water pasta hack is simple—pour 32 oz. of cold water into a skillet, add your pasta, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt and boil until the pasta is cooked to your liking. This method has been suggested by several experts, including Alton Brown and America's Test Kitchen, and TikTok users are catching on too.

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Does the cold water pasta hack work?

I was dubious about this hack since pasta is one of those things that I've been cooking for years without fail, the same exact way. So to think that I could cook it faster and in a skillet instead of a pot really threw me. But I'm never one to turn down a good kitchen experiment, so I grabbed my largest skillet and got to work.

My initial thoughts: The water boiled a lot faster because there was more surface area in my skillet than in a pasta pot. I also used a lot less water—1 quart as opposed to 6—so I wasn't surprised when it came to a boil quickly. Sabrin says that this method may work better with shorter cuts of pasta, like fusilli or penne, but since the hack going around featured what looked like spaghetti, I grabbed my favorite bronze-cut bucatini and crossed my fingers.

Once the water came to a boil, I was worried that a lot of the water was evaporating and I was trying to keep the pasta submerged so it would cook, so it required a little bit of babysitting and adjusting the heat, plus stirring occasionally to make sure it wasn't sticking to the bottom of the pan. However, it quickly cooked in the super starchy water—about 11 minutes to a pleasing al dente. The cold water method took me exactly 20 minutes from box to bowl and the texture was only slightly stickier than the traditional method.

Meanwhile, the traditional method of boiling 6 quarts of water, adding the pasta in, and cooking it to the same al dente state took me 30 minutes (I had everything going side by side).

The pasta boiled in the more traditional way was evenly cooked. The cold water-cooked pasta was a little more al dente than I would’ve liked in some strands. The bucatini cooked in cold water was also saltier than the traditional method—in a good way.

Sabrin, who has a deep culinary education and two young kids who "devour pasta" at home also tested out the method. He said as a classically trained chef, this was a hard method for him because it’s "counterintuitive to everything I've been taught about cooking pasta." But he says it's a hack he'd go back to, with reservations.

"When I tested it, from cold water to done, once it started boiling, it took 5 to 6 minutes instead of the normal 10 to 11 minutes," Sabrin says. "While I wouldn’t say this is a preferred method, it did save several minutes in getting food on the table, so with small kids at home, I would try this method again.”

Related: The #1 Trick for Smooth and Creamy Pasta Carbonara, According to The Pasta Queen

Tips for the cold water pasta hack

? Don't crowd the pan. I kept my 12-inch skillet to about 8 ounces of pasta even though the hack says you can use a full box. This may work with different short-cut pasta, but once the bucatini absorbed the water and plumped up, there was considerably less space in my skillet.

? Don't forget to salt your water. I followed the directions and added 1 1/2 teaspoons of regular table salt along with the pasta to the skillet before boiling. It did come out saltier than the traditional method but it was seasoned to perfection. Contrary to myths out there, salted pasta water does not cook the pasta faster or slower.

? Save your pasta water. Some folks don't have any water leftover when they use the cold water method, but I had some starchy water left in my skillet. Whatever you do, don't pour the cooking water down the drain. Add some of the pasta water to your pasta sauce to help coat the pasta more evenly. You can also pour any leftover pasta water into ice cube trays and save it for thickening sauces and soups.

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