Stanley Tucci’s Tips for the Perfect Pasta Dinner Are Life-Changing

Through his performances as Secondo in Big Night, Paul Child in Julie & Julia and host of the Emmy-winning series Searching for Italy, actor, writer, filmmaker and author Stanley Tucci has a legacy that is now inextricably intertwined with food, and specifically pasta. 

The beloved performer eats pasta for breakfast and, with his four books, personal Instagram and the CNN series, has taught many a lesson on how to prepare an excellent plate of pasta in practical, accessible ways. Read on for some of his best pasta cooking advice. 

Tip 1: Save That Pasta-Cooking Water

Before you drain your cooked pasta through a colander, dip a heatproof measuring cup into the pot to save a couple of cups of pasta cooking water. This warm, salty, starchy elixir is the key to making silky, emulsified sauces that cling to the pasta strands. It’s the secret ingredient in Cacio e Pepe, Carbonara and Spaghetti alla Nerano (the zucchini-basil pasta Sophie Turner says reminds her of home), which Tucci shares in his 2022 memoir Taste: My Life Through Food. The pasta water acts as a bridge to help rich ingredients—eggs and aged cheeses—emulsify to create velvety, creamy sauces that cling to the strands of pasta.

Tip 2: Don’t Rinse It

In his first book, The Tucci Cookbook, Tucci shares a tip he learned from chef friend Gianni Scappin. “Never rinse cooked pasta under cold water,” he says. “This washes away the pasta’s natural starch and flavor, and sauces will not adhere as well.” This is true for warm sauces, but even more so when one plans to use chilled pasta for pasta salad. Instead, Tucci recommends draining the pasta in a colander, tossing it with a little olive oil, and spreading it out on a baking sheet to cool down. Then you can make your pasta salad or stash the pasta in an airtight container in the fridge to use later.  

Tip 3: Know the Rules and Also Break the Rules

A common misconception people have about pasta, said Tucci in an episode of Waitrose’s Dish Podcast, is that any type of pasta can be paired with any type of sauce. He cites the popular (outside of Italy) combination of spaghetti Bolognese, which, in its origin city of Bologna, is a meat sauce (called ragù) that would always be paired with tender ribbons of tagliatelle or another fresh pasta. Each type of pasta, in Italian tradition, is associated with specific dishes and accompaniments. At the same time, Tucci has no qualms about riffing on Bolognese or combining leftover pasta and cooked beans for an on-the-fly pasta e fagioli on Instagram. Ultimately Tucci’s message is that food is meant to be enjoyed, so don’t sweat the rules too much when you’re cooking for yourself.  

Tip 4: Don’t Drown It in Sauce

When asked on Waitrose’s Dish Podcast about his pasta pet peeves that non-Italians make, Tucci answered “too much sauce,” a common pitfall if one is cooking pasta, plating it and then ladling sauce on top. Tucci’s pasta recipes almost invariably call for tossing cooked pasta in the sauce so that each bite is glossed with a light coating, rather than swimming in a pool of it. 

Tip 5: Par-Cook Pasta Less for Baked Pasta Dishes

Pasta marinara is a family favorite in the Tucci-Blunt household, and in The Tucci Table, he recommends cooking extra pasta and sauce to make Pasta al Forno, literally “pasta in the oven” the following day. For this recipe or any other baked pasta dish where you’re pre-cooking pasta and then baking it in sauce, he cautions readers to cook it very al dente so it doesn’t go soggy and bloated as it bakes. 

Tip 6: Use a Diffuser 

One recommendation Tucci makes in The Tucci Table, which will be especially helpful if you’re cooking on a gas stove or in a thin-walled pot, is to use a heat diffuser when cooking pasta sauces that simmer for 20 minutes or more. A heat diffuser is a metal plate or screen that fits over your burner and disperses heat more evenly across the bottom of your pot, so it doesn’t concentrate in one area. Far less pricey than buying a heavy enameled Dutch oven, a heat diffuser can help prevent tomato-based sauces from scorching on the bottom of the pot. 

Tip 7: Making Fresh Pasta? Let It Rest 

Tucci’s love for food was born from Italian American parents who love to cook. Even when they were both working full time, they would make fresh pasta together on weeknights, his mother mixing the dough in a food processor and his father rolling it out. But unless you want to fight your pasta dough at every step as you try to force it through the rollers, a key step in making fresh pasta is letting it rest after mixing the dough. Resting allows time for the flour to hydrate and the strands of gluten formed during the mixing process to soften, ensuring they’ll stretch more readily once it’s time to roll and cut the dough. Need something to do with 20 to 30 minutes of resting time? Tucci’s got you there, too. Go mix yourself a Picasso’s Daughter, his gin twist on a Paloma, and read our full guide on essential tools to make pasta at home. 

Tip 8: Fresh Isn’t Always Best

There’s a misconception that fresh pasta made at home with flour and eggs is superior to machine-extruded, dried pastas, but Tucci doesn’t take sides. By all means, make pillowy gnocchi or tender egg-based pastas—like tagliatelle or delicate sheets for the giant, egg yolk-stuffed ravioli recipe in The Tucci Table—for the pleasure of the task and the delicious results, but also stock up on spaghetti, penne, orzo and other dried pastas for weekday dinner convenience. 

Tip 9: Tomato Is Tough to Beat

The Tucci Cookbook includes seven different tomato-based pasta sauce recipes! And in his 2024 diaristic food memoir, What I Ate in One Year, Tucci says “I like to make tomato sauce whenever I return home after a trip … I find it grounding.” Day after day, simple tomato sauces appear in his descriptions of the meals he makes himself (and famously brings in his lunch bag to the set of whatever project he’s filming). They’re a favorite for his children’s suppers and make a convenient meal when tossed with fresh pasta or re-warmed leftovers. Whether slow-simmered from canned tomatoes or quick, fresh chopped versions loaded with basil, Tucci shows that you don’t really need to overthink things when it comes to saucing pasta as long as you’ve got some good tomatoes on hand.