Most people are familiar with the traditional method of cooking pasta: placing dry pasta in a pot of boiling water with a pinch of salt and letting it simmer for about 10 minutes. However, one chef and mother-of-two insists that we’ve been ‘doing it wrong’ all along and proposes a superior pasta-cooking technique.
Hollie-Evelyn, known as @hollieevelyn on Instagram, regularly shares her « delicious, wholesome recipes » with her 83,500 followers on the platform. In one of her recent reels, she decided to share a pasta hack – unveiling a different approach to the usual way of cooking it.
The video showed Hollie adding dry pasta directly into her pan, with overlay text reading: « POV: you stopped boiling your kids’ pasta in plain water and this happened.. »
Next, Hollie was seen adding chopped cherry tomatoes to the pan, along with peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, onion, courgettes and dried mixed herbs before pouring stock over everything.
The chef explains that she cooks the pasta in this manner until it’s al-dente, then mixes in one tablespoon of cornstarch and one tablespoon of the pasta sauce.
Captioning the reel, the mum wrote: « Stop wasting an opportunity to add flavour and goodness into your kids’ meals!
« I cook the pasta straight in chicken stock and veggies. It soaks up all the nutrition and flavour and makes pasta x 10 tastier (with zero extra pans or faffing around!).
« It’s my kids favourite and I never get asked for plain pasta now! »
She said: « Simple and delicious. Save this one for a quick 15-minute meal. We call it rainbow pasta – goodbye plain old pasta. »
To see Hollie’s full recipe, be sure to check out her reel.
The post was a hit, garnering over 9,000 likes. One fan exclaimed: « I can almost smell the flavours. »
Another commented: « Oh what a great idea. »
A third added: « So simple but so effective. Thank you for sharing lovely. »
A fourth also offered their own advice, stating: « Same deal with rice too – so yummy! »
