Package directions are not your friend

Two reasons: too little water, and too much faith in the timer.

Most box directions tell you to use 4 quarts of water per pound. That’s the minimum, not the ideal. If you’re using a standard 6-quart pot and cooking a full box, you’re overcrowding. The starch concentration gets too high, the pasta releases starch into not enough water, and the surface gets sticky before it’s even done.

The second problem is the cook time. Box times are tuned so that the average person—who might boil at a lower temp or live at altitude—won’t get raw pasta. That means for most of us, the recommended time is too long. You’re pulling it at 10 minutes when it was already gummy at 8.

Fix: Use at least 5 quarts of water per pound. Salt it well (that