How to cook the perfect bowl of pasta every time, according to science

Whether you like your spaghetti al dente or pleasingly soft, achieving perfection at home can be difficult. Many of us may have experienced our pasta Disintegrating into a beige pulp – especially for gluten-free options.

So, how much water and salt do you actually need, and how long should you cook it if you want the best results? Also, how should you modify your cooking process when using gluten-free pasta? a fresh Study I and my colleagues conducted, Published in Food Hydrocolloidshas provided answers by revealing the physics behind the cooking process.

Turning to the Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility (a spherical particle accelerator), we studied the scattering of X-rays from pasta (at low angles) to uncover its internal structure. Then we went to Isis and the Institut Laure Langevin, which are neutron facilities in the UK and France, and used neutrons (which form atomic nuclei with protons) to shed light on the microstructure of regular and gluten-free spaghetti under different cooking conditions.

Study reveals how the hidden structure of pasta changes when cooked, and why gluten-free versions behave so differently.

The setup enabled us to investigate the structure of starch and gluten within the spaghetti on small scales that ranged from tens to thousands of times the radius of an atom. This way, we can compare the changes that occur in regular and gluten-free pasta when they are cooked under different conditions, such as cooking for a very long time or cooking without salt.

Our experiments allowed us to “see” different components of the pasta separately. By mixing normal and “heavy water” (which contains an isotope called deuterium), we can make gluten or starch invisible to the neutron beam. This way, we can effectively isolate each structure in turn, and understand the effects of starch and gluten during cooking.

The power of gluten and salt

Our study shows that, in regular pasta, gluten acts as a strong scaffold that holds the starch grains in place even during boiling, giving the pasta firmness and slowing the digestion rate. In gluten-free pasta, the starch particles swell and collapse more easily – when this type of pasta is cooked under non-optimal conditions, its mushy texture and rapid breakage is evident.

We also examined the effect of salt in the cooking water on the structure of the pasta. We found that salt doesn’t just make pasta taste better; It also strongly affects the microstructure of the spaghetti. When regular pasta is boiled in salted water, the gluten retains its structure, and the starch particles are less damaged by the cooking process.

So how much salt should you add to preserve the microstructure of pasta? Our study showed that the optimal salt level is seven grams per liter of water, with larger quantities of pasta requiring more water. The pasta should be cooked for ten or 11 minutes in the case of regular and gluten-free options respectively. In contrast, when the salt concentration was doubled, the internal order broke down more rapidly and the structure within the starch granules changed significantly due to the cooking process.

In gluten-free pasta, the story was different again due to the lack of protection from gluten. Even small amounts of salt cannot compensate for the lack of gluten. The artificial compounds in processed starch that companies use as gluten substitutes decompose rapidly. The most extreme example of this degradation occurred when gluten-free spaghetti was cooked too long, for example, 13 minutes instead of 11 minutes, and in very salty water.

So the main conclusion was that gluten-free pasta is structurally more delicate and less tolerant when cooked for too long and with the wrong amount of salt.

Improving Gluten-Free Options

Understanding the structure of pasta at these very small scales, which are invisible even under a microscope, will help in the design of better gluten-free foods. Specifically, the hope is to achieve gluten-free alternatives that are more resilient to poor cooking conditions and more similar in texture to regular spaghetti.

Regular wheat pasta has a low glycemic index because gluten slows down the breakdown of starch grains during digestion. Gluten-free pasta made from rice and corn flour often lacks this structure, meaning the sugars can be released faster. With neutron scattering, food Scientist One can now identify which ingredients and cooking conditions are best suited to recreate the structure of gluten.

It is also a story about how cutting-edge experimental equipment, primarily used for fundamental research, is changing food research. Neutron scattering played a fundamental role in advancing our understanding of magnetic materials, batteries, polymers, and proteins. Now it’s also helping us understand how everyday foods behave on a microscopic level.