Spaghetti: nutrition and how to use it

Fun facts

• Traditional dry pasta is made from semolina, a coarse flour from hard durum wheat. This wheat is high in protein, which keeps pasta firm and stops it falling apart in the pot.
• 100g of dry spaghetti gives about 371 kcal, 74.7g of carbs and 13g of protein, nearly double the protein of white rice.
• Plain dry pasta has about 1.3mg of iron per 100g. Tomato sauce, vegetables and meat round out the plate.
• Italians have hundreds of pasta shapes, each designed to suit a type of sauce: long strands for thin sauces, tubes and spirals to hold thick ones.

Choosing and storing

Good pasta is a pale golden color with a slightly rough surface that grips sauce, and the label reads durum wheat semolina. Dry pasta kept sealed, cool and dry lasts a very long time. Cooked pasta goes in a sealed container in the fridge and should be eaten within a few days.

Cooking it well

Boil pasta in plenty of lightly salted water, stirring a few times at first so it does not stick. Drain it al dente, when the center still has a slight bite, usually 1 to 2 minutes before the time on the pack. Save a little pasta water to make your sauce silkier. Pasta cooked al dente tends to digest more slowly than soft, overcooked pasta; learn more in glycemic index and glycemic load.

Frequently asked questions