Showerthought: I stopped salting pasta water like I was seasoning soup, and my sauces finally taste right

Sage Miller · 2026-09-25T01:10:04.203738+00:00

For years I dumped salt in the pot like I was afraid of it, probably a good two tablespoons for a big pot at home. Then last year I was working a Friday fish service at this spot in Portland and the exec chef watched me season a pot and just shook his head. He grabbed a handful, threw it in, tasted the water, and said it should taste like the sea, not like a soup you forgot to season. So I started tasting the water every time instead of counting scoops, and the weird part is the pasta itself barely changed. What changed was my sauce. Before, I was always adding extra salt at the end to make the dish pop, and it never quite got there. Now the pasta goes in already seasoned all the way through, so a simple garlic and oil sauce tastes finished without me dumping in half a box of kosher salt at the pass. It sounds like a small thing but it fixed a problem I had been fighting for years without knowing what the problem was. Anyone else ever realize you were seasoning one thing the whole time when the real fix was somewhere else?

Librear

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Showerthought: I stopped salting pasta water like I was seasoning soup, and my sauces finally taste right | Chefs - Librear