Ina Garten's Pro-Tip For Ravioli That Won't Stick Together
Nearly everyone cooks pasta. It's one of those easy-to-make comfort foods that can fit into any budget or meal plan. However, cooking pasta, while seemingly simple, is fraught with potential issues that can ruin dinner — which is why you'll benefit from knowing some handy hacks for making perfect pasta. Case in point: When cooking ravioli, if you don't do it right, you could end up with a huge clump if they all stick together. Ina Garten, also known as Barefoot Contessa, has an easy tip that will stop this from happening. After the ravioli is done and before tossing it into a sauce or soup, she carefully strains the ravioli with a spider strainer or slotted spoon and lays them out separated on large plates.
She shares this tip in her cookbook Go-To Dinners while explaining her recipe for ravioli en brodo, which is a soup fortified with pillowy ravioli. This essential step will save you from sticky ravioli whether you're adding it to a brothy soup or you plan to coat it with a sauce. Here's why this is good practice, even if it takes a couple of extra minutes.
Why you need to treat ravioli differently than dry pasta
While draining pasta in a colander is the tried-and-true method, you might have noticed that this doesn't work well with ravioli. Why is that? For one, ravioli is not dried like many other types of boxed pasta. Because ravioli has a fresh filling, typically of ricotta cheese and other ingredients, it is either fresh or frozen. This makes the ravioli softer and stickier than traditional pasta, causing extra water to adhere to the ravioli, essentially forming a glue with the starch as it cools. If they cool overlapped, they will stick and potentially rip if you try to pry them apart. Along with careful straining, Ina's tip will allow extra water to settle off of the ravioli before you add it to your sauce or soup, minimizing sticking.
You can use as many and as large plates as you need so that the ravioli don't touch each other. Another way to prevent them from sticking together, besides making sure you never drain ravioli in a colander, is to make sure you're using plenty of water while cooking so the ravioli can move around and aren't bunched together. Also, do not overcook the ravioli because that will make them more prone to sticking and breakage.
Other tips for cooking the best ravioli
Besides gently draining and handling cooked ravioli, some other practices will keep them from becoming a sticky, oozing mess. Never toss them into water that is boiling too furiously. Lower your water to a simmer, especially when cooking homemade ravioli. If you're using store-bought or frozen ravioli and they're all stuck together in the package, just add them to the water as is. They will start to separate as they simmer, and you can help things along with a spoon. Using too much force will just damage the delicate pasta.
The best way to test if the ravioli is done is to cut a small piece from the corner of one being careful not to disturb the filling. You don't want to cut into the middle, since that will spill out if you have to return it to the pot. What about adding olive oil to the water? While some people swear by this method, most do not, as this will only prevent sauce from sticking to the pasta. And, obviously, never wash any pasta under running water, that will remove the starch that helps the sauce adhere.