One-pan pasta on Bruce loves to cook

Cooking pasta in the pan

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The pasta cooks in the pan it’ll be sauced in, in just enough salted water to cover it. That’s the whole trick. A big pot of water dilutes the starch the pasta gives off; a pan with a little water keeps it, and the starch is what tightens the sauce later.

Pasta sauces

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The sauce either comes from a base you made ahead, like a meat sauce or a marinara from the freezer, or it’s built fresh, quickly, in the time the pasta takes. Either way it goes into the pan with the pasta, not over it at the end.

Finishing pasta in the sauce

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When the pasta is 2–3 minutes from done, add the sauce to the pan and keep it moving. The pasta finishes cooking in the sauce and takes some of it in, and the starchy water binds the two into one glossy sauce that clings. This is the step a restaurant does with its pasta water; here the water is already in the pan.

Off the heat

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Take the pan off the heat before the finishing notes go in. Cheese turns grainy and stringy over a flame, butter splits out of the sauce, good oil loses its flavour, and herbs go dark. Off the heat they melt into the sauce instead. Then plate it straight away, since the sauce keeps tightening as it sits.

Cherry tomato and garlic pasta

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The fresh version: nothing made ahead, just cherry tomatoes, garlic, and oil cooked in the pan with the pasta. It’s also the best way I know to use up the last of the cherry tomatoes.