Can we talk about the "don't salt your pasta water like the sea" advice from my old chef in Boston?

Henry Kelly · 2026-10-03T20:50:03.354517+00:00

When I was a commis at a seafood spot in Boston about 8 years ago, my head chef pulled me aside and said to stop dumping handfuls of salt in the pasta water because it was wasteful and made the sauce taste off. I nodded and did what he said for almost a year. Then one slow Tuesday I cooked two batches side by side, one with his light salt and one with water that tasted like the ocean, and the heavily salted one was noticeably better. The pasta itself had actual flavor instead of just being a blank starch, and the sauce clung to it way better. I told him about the test and he just shrugged and said he'd always done it that way because that's how his first boss ran the line. I've salted aggressively ever since, about 1.5 tablespoons per gallon, and nobody has ever sent a plate back for being too salty. Has anyone else had a chef hand down a rule that turned out to be plain wrong once you actually tested it?

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Can we talk about the "don't salt your pasta water like the sea" advice from my old chef in Boston? | Chefs - HW Forums