Pasta Commandment I: Thou shalt liberally salt thy pasta water.
But how much?
According to Ricardo Felicetti, the fourth generation head of Felicetti, an outstanding pasta maker located in the northern tip of Italy (yeah, I’d trust him), we should be salting our water according to the 10-100-1000 ratio. 10 grams of salt is the right amount to cook 100 grams of pasta in 1000 milliliters of water.
For reference, the following picture is about 30 grams of salt for 300 grams of pasta in 3 litres of water:
Won’t all this salt make the pasta too salty? No, because not all this water gets absorbed into the pasta. (As opposed to something like rice, where most of it gets absorbed) Remember, this amount of salt only works if you have the right amount of water. 10-100-1000.
There is one situation in which its okay to put less salt in the water, and that’s if the sauce or other ingredients that are going into the dish are salty like anchovies or Parmesan.
The kind of salt matters too. Bon Appetit recommends using kosher salt and avoiding iodized table salt.
It may seem like too much salt, but try it out and you’ll be surprised by how much better properly seasoned pasta tastes.