Buzz
Despite what the name implies, cream isn't the secret ingredient behind 'creamy' pasta dishes. That role belongs to pasta water, the starchy magic that thickens sauces and ensures they coat your noodles. It's crucial to save a cup before draining your pasta, but sometimes mistakes happen, and the water slips down the drain before you notice.
If this happens, don’t stress. There are two simple ways to create a substitute for pasta water.
How to quickly create pasta water when you’ve accidentally drained it all
The starch in pasta water is what makes it so valuable. While the starch naturally leeches into the water as the pasta cooks, you can also create starchy water without needing to cook extra pasta.
By adding semolina flour—the flour typically used to make pasta—to boiling water, you can infuse it with starch, effectively creating a substitute for authentic pasta water.
In fact, you don’t even have to discard your pasta water to use this trick. I often add semolina flour directly into the pasta pot with the noodles, making the water extra smooth and creamy. This is especially useful if I’m preparing a dairy-free meal for my lactose-intolerant boyfriend. For this, I use a ratio of 1/2 cup of flour for 3 quarts of water, but you can adjust it to 2 teaspoons of flour for each cup of water to make one cup of pasta water substitute, if needed.
If you don’t have semolina flour, cornstarch works as a great alternative. America’s Test Kitchen suggests using 1/4 teaspoon of cornstarch for 1 cup of water. Since cornstarch is pure starch, you won’t need as much as you would with flour.
Whether using flour or cornstarch, the process involves whisking the powder into the water and heating it in the microwave for a minute or two until hot. Then, splash it into your sauce as you normally would, or use it to revive leftover pasta and restore its original texture.
