Remember that pasta doubles in size once cooked, so make sure that your rice cooker has enough space to hold all of the cooked pasta. Alternatively, you can fill up to 2/3 of the pot with water. In other words, you can replace your saucepan and stove with your rice cooker!įill your pot with the amount of water that is suggested by the packaging instructions and add salt to taste. When cooking pasta in a rice cooker, you can almost treat it like how you would when cooking on a stovetop. You can use a rice cooker to cook plain pasta. Drain the water if there is any left or leave it to rest with the lid off for 15 minutes to let the excess water evaporate. Check at around the 15-20 minute mark to make sure it isn’t overcooked. Cook it on the high setting for about 30 minutes. Any bits that stick out won’t cook properly. To cook plain pasta in a slow cooker, add your pasta and enough water to cover it. I would usually check when there is a quarter of the cooking time left to make sure the pasta isn’t too soft. This is also important because different brands and types of pasta need different cooking times. But you should check your pasta from time to time to make sure it is cooked to your desired level of doneness. It is generally a one-pot dish, which saves a lot of time! Slow cookers are simple to use but having said that, it may be harder to make firmer pasta, which you might want for dishes like pasta salad.Ĭooking in a slow cooker is more suited to saucier pasta recipes as the pasta can come out more on the softer side.
PLAIN PASTA IN INSTANT POT HOW TO
How to Cook Plain Pasta in A Slow CookerĬooking pasta in a slow cooker is both convenient and easy. Bake for around 30 minutes or until heated through at approximately 200☌/400☏/Gas Mark 6. You can add other ingredients like vegetables, sausages, and seasoning too. Add dry pasta, a jar of your favorite pasta sauce, and an extra jar of water. You can also easily make pasta bake in the oven. Allow for more time if you are adding cold liquid.
PLAIN PASTA IN INSTANT POT PLUS
Then bake for the stated time on the pasta packet plus 10 minutes.
Cover your dish tightly with a lid or double layers of foil and add this to a preheated oven at 100☌ or 212☏. If you can drain the pasta water then you might want to add more water to be extra sure that the pasta stays fully wetted. In summary, add your choice of pasta to an oven-safe dish and add enough hot liquid to fully submerge the pasta. It might be useful to check it out because I go over in more detail how much liquid you need to add, how long to cook for, and tips on getting the best oven-baked pasta. I actually wrote an article on how you can cook plain pasta in the oven.
PLAIN PASTA IN INSTANT POT TRIAL
It may take a bit of trial and error, but it will work.
If you have an oven then cooking pasta is simple. But if you don’t have either then you will need another way of adding heat to your pasta, which I will outline below. The next best thing would be to cook pasta using a microwave. This gives you the best control over the level of doneness.
Ideally, you would cook pasta in a pot of boiling water. To cook dry pasta, you are going to need to use liquid, to rehydrate, and heat, to cook. The heat from the oven will cook the noodles through. You can then simply combine the ingredients and bake. You can soak your pasta in warm water instead of precooking it while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Many dishes like lasagne or pasta bakes call for precooked pasta. Soaked pasta, when used as a first step to cooking pasta, can save precooking time in some dishes. But that isn’t to say that soaking pasta isn’t a good idea at all. It isn’t ideal to just soak pasta instead of boiling it if you intend to cook it off fully. Unfortunately, you are going to need to use some heat to fully cook your pasta. The texture of the pasta will be different from cooked pasta and many do not find this taste very enjoyable.
While soaking for plenty of time (over hours) can result in pasta that is soft enough to eat, it won’t be cooked. Soaking pasta instead of boiling will result in softened but raw pasta. Photo by Karolina Kołodziejczak on Unsplash