A warm bowl of delicious soup is all a person needs in the cold months of December and January. Now, you don’t have to stick to the same old tomato soup. There are a lot of ways to step up your soup game. People tend to add pasta to their soup to get that winter warmth.
However, one common question that arises while making this particular soup type is, can you add uncooked pasta to soup?
While making the perfect bowl of soup, you have to keep track of all the ingredients and measurements. Many people tend to add uncooked pasta as a means of saving time and energy. Although it is acceptable to add uncooked pasta to soup, there are still some exceptions.
If you are storing your soup with pasta dish, you need to read how long is pasta good for in the fridge
There are a lot of things to consider before making a decision on whether to cook the pasta separately or with the soup itself. Firstly, there is the starch content that is to be kept in mind. In typical wheat-based noodles, a large amount of starch releases into the water, changing the consistency of the soup. Also, starches can cause the water to turn dirty and thicken the soup unnecessarily.
The question of whether or not you should add uncooked pasta to soup solely depends on the type of noodles you’re using, a little on the kind of soup you’re creating, as well as a bit of your own individual taste.
Adding uncooked pasta to your soup seems easy and less time-consuming; however, you have to keep in mind the type of noodles you are using, whether they are wheat-based or pasta that is cooked with alternative ingredients, such as soy flour, quinoa, buckwheat, or Kamut.
Even the type of soup you’re making decides the fate of the taste. Whatever ingredients you put in, everything matters to get that perfect bowl of soup with delicious noodles. Nevertheless, timing is the most important aspect of adding uncooked noodles to your soup.
You need to pay close attention to the timing when adding pasta to your soup. If you want to avoid mushy, overcooked pasta, make sure all your ingredients are cooked at the same time and make sure they are all perfectly done.
Let’s say you do not time it right. In that case, you could end up with cooked pasta before the ingredients in the soup are fully cooked, so you either have to serve an undercooked soup with perfectly cooked pasta or an almost perfectly cooked soup with overcooked pasta.
When adding the pasta to the soup, it should be boiled separately for about 75 per cent of the time. During this process, you prevent overcooking the soup and reduce the amount of starch released into it, thus preventing cloudiness. Ensure that you add the pasta just before the soup is done in order to avoid it from becoming mushy.
Whether you’re cooking the pasta separately or adding it to a simmering soup, mix it into the soup right away. As a result, you’ll avoid starchy noodles sticking together. You should not add oil to your pasta cooking water if you are cooking it separately; the oil will slick the outside of the pasta, so the soup will not adhere properly.
It is important to remember that pasta’s cooking liquid is a natural thickener, so if your soup turns out too thin, try adding uncooked pasta to the soup to cook or stirring in some pasta water from separately cooked pasta.
On a final note, adding uncooked pasta to your soup is perfectly fine if and only when you are following the proper instructions.
