5 clever ways to use your pasta water

Pasta is a very common dish around the world. A staple food of Italian cuisine, pasta comes in two varieties – dried and fresh.

While dried pasta is produced commercially, fresh pasta is traditionally produced by hand.

Both dried and fresh kinds of pasta come in numerous shapes and varieties like spaghetti, macaroni, ravioli, cannelloni, tortellini, etc.

Pasta is usually cooked either by boiling or baking, the former one being more common. It is a very common thing to drain out the water that is left after boiling the pasta.

However, it can be put to various uses. Here is a look at 5 clever ways to use your pasta water.

1. Watering your plants and flowers
Water which has been used to cook pasta is full of starch, which is often rich in minerals and vitamins, making it helpful for growing plants and flowers. So the next time you boil your pasta, use it to water the garden rather than draining it.

2. Making homemade pizza dough and bread
Since pasta water retains some of the flavours and starch from the pasta, it will give your homemade pizza dough, or bread, a new and unique taste. If your bread recipe requires water, save your pasta water in the fridge. Later, when you make bread, you can use the leftover pasta water instead of tap water.

3. Cooking rice
Pasta water can add some flavour and richness to rice. Instead of boiling rice in tap water, use your leftover pasta water in rice. If you are making a big meal, it can be easy to simply transfer your pasta water to another pot when you are done cooking. You can then bring that water to a boil and use it to cook rice.

4. Loosen thick sauce
If you are making your own pasta sauce, and it has become thicker than you want, just throw in a splash of pasta water. This will lighten up your sauce, making it easier to spread, while adding some flavour to the dish.

5. Soaking your sore feet
If you have sore feet at the end of a long hard day then this treatment might just be the one for you. All you have to do is warm up your pasta water to a comfortable temperature and dip your feet in it. The heat combined with the minerals will soothe aches and pains.