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Why they don't put salt in pasta dough

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28 Replies to “Why they don't put salt in pasta dough”

  2. I will never make pasta because it's too much damned trouble and I don't have a stand mixer but this was really inciteful and I appreciate the science behind this episode. Thanks Adam!

  4. Love the science in this. A video about egg whites foaming up (like for angel food cake) and the science behind it would be quite interesting 👍

  5. Here in Hungary we like to eat pasta with cottage cheese and sour cream. Many people like putting some sugar on this (I am not one of them, I personally think they are heretics). I would imagine that would taste a little… extra weird if pasta was salty by default.

  6. Not really a valid argument because semolina pasta is not extruded from a cohesive dough.

  8. Hey man, don't ever think "I'm just a guy in his kitchen with a camera". Adam Savage had it had it right when he said that the difference between screwing around and science is recording data. Your camera is how you record data my friend.

  13. My theory is that salting the water ensures 100% even saltiness distributed throughout the pasta, rather than in the mix, where it might have more or less salt distributed in individual noodles. No idea if this is true, but it's what I'm going with.

  15. Just a thought, but wouldn’t a saltier, and therefore harder dough also take more effort and time from pasta extruders to be shaped at a factory? If factories wanted to keep the time it takes to shape pasta constant, then wouldn’t they need better and stronger pasta extruders to compensate for the hardness of salty dough? That would raise costs for a factory, which is a bad thing, so maybe that could be a potential reason for why salty pasta dough isn’t common? Just a thought from someone with little knowledge of pasta extruders and factories, and just dough in general, so take everything I just said WITH A TON OF SALT, just like people season their pasta water.
    Cheers Adam!

  16. Sounds like your shirt was rubbing against your shirt during this episode, getting some noise.

  17. Maybe another reason they didn't salt the dough was because it's easier to control salt levels in the finished food? The desired saltiness of a light, buttery pasta dish would be different to one with a thicker, heartier sauce. Salting the pasta dough could make it hard to peoperly season the final product, so they just left it out.

  18. "Why not cut out the middleman", say no more Adam I will inject salt and cut it out from my food henceforth.

  20. This is all too much effort. You don't put salt in the pasta because when you ask Nonna if you should put salt in, Nonna says: "Salt in the pasta? Whaddayou Craze?"

  21. I think in cup noodles or instant ramen we would not drain out any water at all, also I think noodles are fried?

  24. Seriously, "because, why would you" was good enough for me, but you got into the science of it including chemo-electrical charges. Kudos dude! Above and beyond the call!

  25. Nah man you're wrong, here in Italy we crunch down on raw pasta, sniff the sauce and immerge ourselves in boiling water (add salt first) enjoy

  27. no salt because you WANT pasta to STAY DRY and salt sucks water so it will rot sooner and pasta is made to STORE FOOD not rot it.

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