Reheating leftover spaghetti should be easy, but somehow, it always turns into a frustrating battle. The pasta, once perfectly twirly and saucy, has transformed into a sticky, clumped-up brick sitting in the container.
Microwaving it as-is? Disaster. The outer edges of your pasta will scorch and/or dry out while the center stays cold. Adding water can help, but then you risk turning it into spaghetti soup.
It’s a struggle, but leftover spaghetti is still worth saving—because who doesn’t love a second round of pasta without the effort of cooking again?
Cook’s Illustrated, the no-nonsense cooking magazine known for its science-based cooking techniques, shared this reader tip on Instagram (@cooksillustrated) and it’s pure genius! This is definitely going to make reheating pasta a lot easier—and it starts with how you store it.
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Make Noodle Nests To Preserve Your Pasta
The magazine said they got this tip from Allie Beth of New Orleans, who was frustrated with how leftover pasta sticks together, making it harder to reheat. To fix her problem, Beth twirls the cooked noodles into small little nests and stores them side-by-side in a container.
“This way, when she wants to heat up leftovers, she can easily pluck out one or two for tidy serving,” the company wrote in the caption of the Instagram post.
We’ve definitely seen pasta nests made with fresh or dried pasta, but this is the first time we’ve seen it with cooked leftover pasta. Why did we think of this sooner?
Related: The Italian Home Cook Trick for Making Creamy Pasta Sauce Without the Cream
Why This Pasta Trick Works
Twirling your pasta into nests before storing might seem like a small step, but it makes reheating so much easier. Instead of dumping a tangled mess of spaghetti into a container—where it clumps together and turns into a sticky brick—portioning it into neat little nests prevents sticking and helps the pasta reheat more evenly.
Each nest holds just the right amount for a single serving, so you can reheat only what you need without wrestling with a giant lump of pasta. Plus, the shape allows for better sauce distribution when reheating, because the noodles aren’t all mashed together.
When it’s time to eat, just pop a nest into a pan with a little water or sauce, and it quickly loosens up into perfect, non-clumpy strands. Less frustration, less mess and a way better texture—because no one wants sad, gluey pasta!
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Other Pasta-Storing Tips You Should Know About
If you store your leftover pasta without sauce on it, the pasta won’t absorb all the sauce and turn mushy. This is the best option if you want to control texture and portion sizes when reheating, so when you make your pasta nests, do so without the sauce.
You should also toss the pasta with a little olive oil before storing to prevent it from sticking together.
When you reheat both the sauce and pasta, you can mix them together with a splash of water or even some extra sauce for fresher-tasting leftovers.
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