There are few things as simple to make and enjoyable to eat as pasta, but when it's time to reheat and re-eat leftover noodles, the once-delicious meal turns crusty and dry. The dish is often wasted when home cooks do not take the right steps to prepare leftover pasta.
Luckily for noodle lovers, one TikTok chef shared a pasta-saving, money-saving, time-saving hack to reheat noodle dishes.
The scoop
TikTok user Erin Perry (@erin_perry) shared "an awesome cooking hack" passed down from her grandmother to her TikTok page.
@erin_perry Leftovers cooking hack! Save your pasta water in your sauce jar for reheating pasta! #leftovers #cookinghacks #cookingtips #pastatiktok ♬ original sound - Erin Perry
"When you make pasta," she said, "make sure you save some of your pasta water that you boiled your noodles in."
Put the pasta water in the sauce jar that had been used for the dish and save it in the fridge. While there are many ways a person can reuse pasta water — for baking bread, cooking beans, or freezing to supplement vegetable broth in a soup, for example — this TikToker suggests using it when reheating pasta.
When leftover night arrives, pull that pasta water and the pasta from the refrigerator. Then, pour some of the water over the dish and stick it in the microwave. Even better, at least if you have an electric or induction stove and would not have to burn more gas to do so, you could reheat the noodles in the pasta water over the stovetop.
After all, cooking pasta in the first place is essentially just rehydrating it. The result is a fresher, softer alternative to what is a typically unappetizing leftover dish. This way, the meal is more likely to be re-eaten and less likely to end up in a landfill where it transforms from sustenance to garbage and wasted money.
How it's helping
The average American family wastes $1,200 worth of food every year. This is due to over-buying, over-preparing, food spoilage, and more. An estimated two-thirds of food in the household ends up spoiling before it is eaten, and cooking portions have increased over time, leading consumers to over-prepare dishes only to throw them away.
In a report by Well Being International, data was collected from 93 countries to conclude that 1.05 billion tonnes (1.15 billion tons) of food was wasted in 2022. This food-turned-trash is worth around $1 trillion.
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Bought more than I could eat 🛒 This phenomenon can be helped by consumers. Those who choose to shop smarter in the grocery store or through organizations such as Misfits Market or Too Good To Go help themselves in the process of helping the environment, as does reducing waste with their leftovers.
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To reduce food waste even by just 10% is to save a person $75 annually. When consumers use their leftovers instead of trashing them, they can save resources, money, and — with other efforts — the planet.
What everyone's saying
TikTok users were amazed and excited by Erin's hack. Since it is such an easy way to ensure a delicious pasta dish can be enjoyed for days, viewers were thrilled to save their own pasta water for reuse.
"That's a really good idea thank you," one person commented.
Another simply said: "Good hack."
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