How much salt should be used when cooking pasta? It varies. It should never be “as salty as the sea,” though.
When people ask me how much salt to put in a pot of water to boil pasta, I normally just advise them to guess the amount. Nevertheless, when I was recently asked that question, I pondered whether there was a more exact quantity I ought to be using, which brought me to a more specific query: Exactly how salty should my pasta water be?
Salting Pasta Water
I doubt that I’ve ever measured the salt in the water I use for my pasta. Just enough salt is added so that the water tastes well-seasoned but not overly salty. Although I freely admit that I occasionally go overboard and destroy my pasta with excessive salt, perhaps measuring is still a good idea.
While I occasionally salt my pasta water excessively, I’ve found that most people use far too little salt. No matter what kind of sauce or cheese is added, the pasta still tastes bland. I’m assuming that many home cooks panic at the thought of adding a lot of salt to their pot of pasta water, but they’re overlooking one crucial fact: The majority of the salt ends up going down the drain. If you add a tablespoon of salt to a quart of cooking water, you won’t be able to consume the entire tablespoon unless you drink the entire amount. (Read our post here to learn how much water you actually need to boil pasta; you might be surprised by the answer.) If you season the spaghetti insufficiently, it won’t turn out well.
What is the proper dosage? The solution will be a ratio of salt to water rather than a specific amount of salt.
I conducted some side-by-side testing to identify what it was. But first, a tiny disclaimer: Salt preferences are highly individualized, so what I discovered to be my sweet spot won’t necessarily be to everyone’s taste. People may prefer different amounts of salt. Having said that, I did come up with a reasonable range that I believe most people will accept.
Measuring the Recommended Salt Level for Cooking Pasta
This test’s setup was simple: I simply had to cook pasta in various pots of water, adding varying amounts of salt to each, and then taste them to determine which I preferred. The only issue was deciding which salt concentrations to try.
I looked online and through numerous Italian cookbooks and discovered a variety of options. In his excellent book Cooking by Hand, Paul Bertolli recommends 5 tablespoons of salt per gallon. Internet, I noticed that some people suggested using up to 1 tablespoon of salt for every quart of water, while others suggested using 1 tablespoon for every 2 quarts. Yet, what proportions are these?
One of the challenges with salt is that it comes in a variety of densities (kosher, fine sea, coarse sea, and table), each of which will have a different amount of sodium chloride (NaCl) than the other. Even the same salt in two distinct brands, such as Morton and Diamond Crystal kosher salt, will not be identical. The best method to solve this problem for testing is to use weight instead of volume.
I chose to use fine sea salt because many Italian experts suggest it even if I am unsure of the specific sorts of salt Bertolli and everyone else use. I discovered that Bertolli was recommending roughly.8% salt by weight (or 8 grams per liter), which is different from the one-tablespoon-per-two-quarts people were calling for. I measured out teaspoons of salt and weighed them on my precise jeweler’s scale (as well as converting the quarts and gallons into liters to make calculations easier). 95% salt (9.5 grams per liter), whereas the proponents of one tablespoon per quart indicated a salt solution of approximately 1.8%. (18 grams per liter).
Now, some of you may have heard the advice to salt pasta water to the same degree as the sea when doing so. That one has been spoken to me more times than I can recall. The sea is rather salty. around 3.5% of the total weight. With a liter of water, that equates to 35 grams of salt.
Using this information, I made the decision to boil dry penne pasta in water that had the ensuing salinity levels:
0.5 percent, or about 3/4 teaspoon of fine sea salt per liter
1% (1 1/2 tablespoons per liter, roughly)
2% (approximately 1 tablespoon fine sea salt per liter) (roughly 1 tablespoon fine sea salt per liter)
3% (1 1/2 teaspoons of fine sea salt, roughly, per liter)
3.5% (approximately 2 teaspoons fine sea salt per liter) (roughly 2 tablespoons fine sea salt per liter)
The usual salinity of the sea, 35 grams per liter, is far too much salt to cook pasta in.
Strictly Food
I’ll start by emphasizing the importance of never, ever making your pasta water as salty as the sea. The absolute worst piece of advise is that. That is disgustingly, unbearably salty. The truth is that 3% salt is also far too salty.
Depending on your tolerance for salt, I found the additional possibilities below that to be viable. The upper limit of what I can tolerate, which tastes extremely well-seasoned but also noticeably salty, is 2% salt by weight.
The sweet spot for me was 1% (precisely the quantity Bertolli advises); it was seasoning without being overly salty. 0.5% still functions for those who are more sensitive to salt. (I tested a few batches later that were below the 0.5% level and discovered they were all lacking in seasoning.)
How much salt should you use?
Anything between 0.5% and 2% salt by weight will work, with 1% being my preferred number, depending on your salt tolerance. For people who enjoy salt, 2% might be effective, but bear in mind that it is perilously near to crossing the line into too-salty territory. Proceed with caution since 2% might easily push you over the limit depending on how salty your sauce and cheese are and whether you use the pasta boiling water to finish the dish (which will concentrate the salt as the water evaporates).