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If you love pasta, you probably already know how to cook it. You start by bringing a large pot of salted water to a boil, then you add the pasta and cook for 8-12 minutes, until it’s al dente—firm but cooked through. You’ll need to stir it occasionally to prevent sticking, and once it’s cooked, you drain the pasta and toss it with your favorite sauce.
This is all very easy and straightforward, and once you dial in your perfect method for making pasta you can do it on autopilot. But legendary chef José Andrés would like to remind you that boiling isn’t the only way to make pasta. If you want to cook pasta like they do in Spain, you should start by toasting it in oil.
Related: I Tried Martha Stewart’s One-Pot Pasta That Has ‘Taken the Internet By Storm’
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Why You Should Toast Your Pasta in Oil
The chef shared this technique on YouTube in conjunction with his show, Longer Tables. The video came out a couple of years ago, but like a lot of things on the internet, we happened to run across it more recently.
“Did you know you should be toasting your pasta?” he asked in the caption to his YouTube video. We didn’t know that, but we do now!
Toasting pasta adds a rich, nutty, caramelized flavor to your dish. As Andrés mentions in the video, toasting your pasta also saves water because you only cover the toasted pasta in a bit of water when you cook it, instead of the big pot of water that pasta is often cooked in.
How to Make Spanish Fideos
In the video, Andrés uses fideos, or spaghetti cut into about 1-inch lengths. Fideos are commonly used in Spanish cooking, but you can break long strands of spaghetti or angel hair pasta into smaller pieces if you can find fideos. Heat some oil in a skillet and add your pasta. For maximum toasting, you want a single layer of pasta in the pan, so don’t overdo it when you add it to the pan.
Let the pasta cook in the oil until it’s browned, stirring it so it toasts and doesn’t burn. Add some water or stock to the toasted pasta. You don’t need a ton. Just enough to barely cover the pasta. Bring the water to a low boil and cook until the pasta is tender, which Andrés says will take 3 minutes or so.
In the video, Andrés is making a seafood pasta, but this method works with other mix-ins and sauces. It’s a fun way to cook pasta for pilafs, because it will add an extra layer of flavor to the dish. In Mexico, the fried toasted pasta is often used to make sopa de fideo, a noodle soup with a tomato-based broth.
If you don’t want to fry the pasta in oil, you can also toast the pasta in a pan or in the oven. We’ve tried the oven method with spaghetti before and we loved the nutty flavor and the fact that toasting it before boiling it helped prevent overcooking.
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