How do you keep pasta from clumping?

True2marie

True2marie

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Penne pasta is a food I rarely cook.

Fifty percent of the time, the end result is bunched up pasta stuck together. Then, I spend a lot of energy separating the penne pasta. (No fun.)

How do you keep pasta from clumping?
 
Firstly - don't overcook it. If it is overcooked it has a tendency to clump together far more.
Secondly, put a touch of oil (olive oil is good with pasta) into the water as you cook it. this coats the pasta in a very fine layer of oil and stops it sticking - and you will pour most of the oil away with the hot water, so very few extra calories are added.
 
I honestly don't know how you manage to make penne clump together. I eat this several times a week and have never ever managed to clump it... I don't do anything special either. Just boil them in a water and that's it, no salt, no oil, nothing.

Overcooking is a very possible cause for your clumping. Normally about 7 minutes is enough but that of course depends, best way to make sure is to taste it once in a while.
 
Pasta clumping is usually caused by not using enough water. ..Yes, you could be over cooking it, but often, folk simply dont use enough water and end up with a lump of pasta in the pan...Pasta needs to move freely in the water
You should get the biggest pan you have and fill it with water. When it boils, put the pasta in and stir. after it comes back to the boil give it another quick stir and leave it alone. Dont keep stirring as this will mush up the carbs and make it clumpy. Put the kettle on in case you need some more boiling water as it cooks.
If you think you have cooked it to a clump, get it in a collander and under a COLD tap as soon as you can. this will wash the sticky stuff away.
 
If you are leaving it on the stove and not stirring it regularly, this will happen - especially if you over cook it as well as others have noted on here. Ideally you should be making them in a larger pan too, but sometimes I will make the pasta with less water and in a smaller pan, because I want the water to come to a boil much faster and I am in a bit of a hurry. It will work but you just need to stir it even more frequently. The oil will help, but it will also cause the sauce to not stick to the pasta as well, especially if the pasta doesn't have ridges.
 
When you put the pasta in salted water, add one tablespoon of oil, and stir pasta for a minute. Oil keeps it lubricated, and a quick stir when placed in, and a few after that keeps pasta from clumping.
 
First, as others have said, don't overcook it.

However, I have never found that adding oil to the water ever really helps with pasta not sticking together.

Only running the pasta afterwards under lukewarm water has done that for me. It stops the pasta from cooking, and therefore stops it from overcooking (which is the real culprit) and sticking together.

However, afterwards, you have not exactly piping hot pasta.

If you want your pasta piping hot, then, I'd just put sauce on it and eat it right away. Leaving it alone can cause it to continue cooking, to overcook at parts, and stick together.
 
Sometimes pasta will clump together if there isn't enough water or too much water evaporates out as steam. I have had occasionally had to add more water to a pot of boiling noodles. Otherwise, I also put a touch of olive oil in the water. Since, I started doing this, I've read NOT to put olive oil in the water because then the sauce won't stick. I haven't had this issue though. I'm sure if you had half oil/half water then that might be the case but you really only need a few drops of oil splashed into the water.
 
The easiest way to remedy the situation in my opinion is to stir your pasta as soon as you put it in the boiling water. When I was younger I never really did this and would end up with huge clumps of pasta. If I am making shells, penne or rotini I will stir as soon as I pour it in and then a few times. If I am making something like angel hair I stir almost the entire time it cooks. I also occasionally use the olive oil idea, but if I stir enough I tend to not need to do that.
 
Yeah, the biggest reason for this clumping is that you're most likely just leaving it to boil, and only going back to it when you're ready to eat it. This is a big nono, if you didn't already get this from everyone else. You've got to be watching it carefully, and stirring it every few minutes. Especially once the water starts boiling, and you've got to make sure that you're stirring up the bottom of the pot too, since it'll stop things from sticking to the bottom.
 
^ I think the most important time to stop it from clumping is as soon as you pour the pasta into the boiling water. My thinking is that once it clumps, which it tends to want to do for me when I first pour it in, it is impossible to not manually "declump" it so I try to get ahead of the problem. With spaghetti, angel hair and linguine this can take a minute or two of stirring but for shells, rotini, penne etc. it doesn't take so much stirring to prevent clumping.
 
forextraspecialstuff said:
^ I think the most important time to stop it from clumping is as soon as you pour the pasta into the boiling water. My thinking is that once it clumps, which it tends to want to do for me when I first pour it in, it is impossible to not manually "declump" it so I try to get ahead of the problem. With spaghetti, angel hair and linguine this can take a minute or two of stirring but for shells, rotini, penne etc. it doesn't take so much stirring to prevent clumping.
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This is true actually, different pasta shapes seem to clump, or not clump, at a different rate to others, so it very much can depend upon what type of pasta you're actually serving, you know?
 
The water should be at boiling point when the pasta is added. Stirring will definitely help to prevent clumping.

When pasta has clumped, mixing it with a sauce that contains oil can be enough to declump it.
 
Like others have said, add a touch of oil to the water while cooking. I never season my water either, not that I think that has anything to do with it clumping, but who knows, it might!

I also stir twice (once straight after it's in, and again about 3/4 the way through cooking), this helps keep it separated and separates any that may have stuck together previously.
 
I have never had a problem with pasta clumping together. I do season my water with rock salt, but that's about it. I only have to stir it once. I prefer my pasta al dente. I have also cooked pasta in a very small pot and it didn't clump. It seems like you're overcooking your pasta.
 
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