Recipe for Disaster is Slate’s column about what recipes get wrong—and how to fix them. If you’ve noticed a recipe annoyance, absurdity, or outright lie, file your complaint here and we will investigate!
Trying to correctly portion pasta for those you’re feeding is like trying to mathematically solve love. There is no “right” answer. A 4-ounce (quarter-pound) serving to one person will feel like a woefully insufficient 2 ounces to a voracious eater. Some guides recommend one-third pound (precooked) per person for a main course, a volume that may make the carb-conscious pass out. But there’s one thing about pasta cooking that I think most of us out here in the home-kitchen trenches can agree on: Recipes that call for only 10 to 12 ounces—many of them, as any home cook can attest—instead of the whole 16-ounce box seem designed to drive us crazy.
The 12-ounce-pasta problem is indeed one of the internet’s great food gripes, and to add insult to injury, recipe writers are keenly aware of their sins. Megan Ginsberg, over at America’s Test Kitchen, wrote dismissively about the situation a few years ago:
I have come to learn that it is infuriating to some people when recipes don’t call for an entire 1-pound box of dried pasta. They get seriously bent out of shape about it. Are you one of those people? If so, I have to ask, what is so wrong about having partial boxes of pasta hanging around?
Well, here’s the issue: These boxes aren’t just partially empty; they’re almost fully empty. Ten- and 12-ounce recipes leave an annoying remnant of noodles in the box. It’s a pain-in-the-ass amount of pasta—enough to awkwardly rattle around the now unsealed package, barely enough to make a meal. What’s more, if said opened box is not closed properly, sometimes those stiff strands or shapes spill out in tight cabinets, creating a mess and bringing curses down upon the haughty recipe writer.
What’s going on here? Why can’t recipe developers just do the right thing and craft their dishes to the obviously correct scale (surely they could just increase the sauce)? What could possibly be driving this absurd affectation, when we know that all but the most rule-bound cooks are going to dump that whole box anyway?
I’ve got plenty of pasta experience under my loosened belt, and some recipe-writing experience too—and I’ve got a theory. Usually, when I write pasta recipes, I instruct people to use the full pound. Whether it’s orecchiette with mini meatballs or mac and cheese, I find that using the whole package is simply optimal for everyone, myself included. Empty the box, recycle the box, wave to the neighbors, move on with your life.
However, I admit I have made exceptions to my 1-pound rule. Last year, I wrote about my quest to make campsite linguine and clams, and for this unusual venture, I used roughly 10 ounces of linguine. Why? Because it’s damn near impossible to fit an entire pound of pasta into a 12-inch sauté pan. Do it, and the linguine, clams, and white wine sauce will splash and spill and slosh everywhere. Moreover, the pan itself becomes too heavy and full to flick and toss. It’s one of the most well-known tenets in cooking: Don’t overcrowd the pan. Pasta needs room to cook. And, not for nothing—the photo always looks much better in a pan than in a big pot. Which got me thinking: Could it be that recipe writers are reducing pasta portions just for the money shot?!
Kristina Razon, formerly of Serious Eats and now deputy food editor at the Kitchn, bravely confirmed my suspicions. “For photo purposes, shooting pasta in a Dutch oven often isn’t the prettiest,” she told me. “Skillets are where it’s at most of the time.” A pan can’t handle a pound of pasta, and yet pasta just pops in a pan. When it’s sunken deep into the confines of enameled cast iron (a vessel I recommend for my orecchiette and mini meatballs) or other large pot, well, not so much. And in the cutthroat world of food social media, recipe photos need to look not just good but incredible. People eat with their eyes, and that applies doubly when they’re choosing recipes to make from a vast online catalog that can often feel overwhelming.
But Ben Mims, recently a recipe writer for the Los Angeles Times who is now at America’s Test Kitchen, offers a different explanation. In his recipe for caramelized lemon pasta with mushrooms and broccoli, he confesses that he doesn’t love pasta (the hell?), citing that the “proportion of carbs to good-for-you ingredients is too high.” His recipe calls for a shocking 8 ounces of pasta, leaving half in the box for … another baby recipe? This kind of willpower and foresight is completely foreign to me. Mims really just goes for straight-up half a box. Honestly, I kind of respect the chutzpah.
At this point, we need to talk about leftovers. Use 1 pound of pasta for a recipe for two, and you’re likely left with some that needs to be refrigerated—a method I fear most chefs and recipe developers consider to be gauche. Even though it congeals and loses most of its delicate texture in the fridge, leftover pasta is a reality for most of us regular folks at home. And those professional pasta photographs—which are often staged to look as if you’re smack-dab in the middle of a sexy dinner party—imply that nobody refrigerates leftover pasta. That’s why most recipes are actually built to eliminate any leftovers whatsoever. I understand where they’re coming from, but I feel compelled to point out that most home cooks want leftovers, and, in any case, not all pasta dishes are created equal.
Take carbonara: intimate, luxurious, delicate yet finicky. You absolutely under no circumstances want leftover carbonara. This carbonara recipe in Bon Appétit, by Carla Lalli Music, calls for 8 ounces of rigatoni, noting that the dish serves four as an appetizer or two as a generous main course. Legally, I worry that a pound of pasta carbonara could be considered a murder weapon. Therefore, most carbonara recipes call for 12 ounces or less, and for good reason.
But a traditional bolognese? Brother, nothing’s better than meat sauce that has had time to sit in the fridge. When the flavors rest and congeal and marinate with one another, then get reheated in a microwave or in a pan with some pasta water, magic happens. Reheated meat sauce isn’t only acceptable; I’d say it’s preferred.
What’s more, you should have no problem functionally reheating some aglio e olio and adding a fried egg for breakfast. As I live and write this paragraph, I’ve got some cavatappi sitting in my fridge, a chilled mess of olive oil, garlic, lemon, anchovy, Chinese black vinegar, and bits of broccoli rabe. Two mornings in a row, I’ve reheated a small bowl and finished with an olive-oil fried egg on top, and two mornings in a row, I’ve lived a glorious, problem-free life. Leftover pasta in the morning rocks.
But back to the matter at hand, because we live in a world where pasta recipes refuse to indulge us. That pesky torn-up box with 4 ounces of spaghetti is our reality, and it ain’t much. Still, there are things you can do with it: It’s an adequate late-night snack (with just butter, salt, and a scatter of Parm) or a means of beefing (starching?) up a soup or stew, the type of thing that makes a healthy dent in your appetite after some drinks. Four ounces is a solo-cooking adventure, so approach it like some needed self-care. Your special little near-empty box of pasta for bubble baths.
Another solution is pasta mista. You might not know this, but cooking various pasta shapes together is actually pretty Italian. The concept allegedly originated in Naples as a way for people to reduce food waste. Short pasta shapes go together quite well. Mixing garganelli, penne, rigatoni, and cavatappi isn’t that strange at all, and ultimately doesn’t alter the experience too much. (This concept, however, doesn’t work all that well with long pasta: Mixing bucatini and linguine together would be an unmitigated nightmare, and due to the different widths working against each other, I reckon you wouldn’t be able to twirl the pasta properly around your fork.)
Here I am, trying to make compromises, when the people have spoken loud and clear: We want to use the whole pound! And guess what? You’re being heard, at least in some quarters. Back in 2019, on the website for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, a reader, Patrick W., said what we were all thinking when he sent in this simple question:
I love your recipes! However, I do not understand why all your pasta recipes include only 12 ounces of pasta. Almost all pasta in the U.S. comes in a 1lb. container (16 ounces). This is wasteful (and honestly, it doesn’t really change the experience ALL THAT MUCH if you use all 16 ounces in your recipes). Wouldn’t it be simpler to just formulate the recipes for a pound of pasta? Thanks!
Then, this response from Lynn Clark, a cook and recipe writer for Milk Street:
Hi Patrick—We used to call for 12 ounces of pasta because we were trying to abide by certain portion-size recommendations that call for 3 ounces of pasta for a single serving (so 3 oz. x 4 servings = 12 oz.). That being said, we are constantly reading and evaluating customer feedback, and, therefore, we will now be calling for 1 lb. of pasta in our pasta recipes. Thanks for being a fan!
Will you look at that? The system works. As it turns out, if enough people band together and cry out for change, sometimes a difference can be made. (Consider this your sign to get involved in local government.) But the truth is, in most cases you’re at the whims of writers—and a lot of them are gonna short you on the pasta. They might, like Mims, prefer a healthful approach. Maybe they’re looking for that perfect, food-styled pasta shot. Maybe they don’t believe in leftovers, or maybe it’s just ridiculous to make a whole pound of rigatoni carbonara, because who the hell eats a pound of rigatoni carbonara and lives to tell about it?
There are a lot of clever ways to spin those near-empty boxes haunting our pantries, but they all ignore the simple truth: God created pasta in 1-pound packages, and we’re just out here trying to respect her divine design. So, please, recipe-makers, quit holding back—let go, let God, and toss that final handful of deliciousness into the pot.
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