When To Use Fresh Vs Dry Pasta
A box of dried pasta is a must-have in any kitchen pantry for a few reasons. It's nonperishable, meaning as long as you can boil water, you'll always have food. Plus, a simple pasta dish with jarred sauce is the easiest of all homemade dinners — not to mention an affordable way to feed a family. You could even make the jarred store-bought sauce taste homemade with a few easy add-ins. But you might be tempted to buy fresh pasta at the store too, for the idea that it's supposedly better than the boxed version. Depending on the quality of ingredients, this might be true, but whether to use fresh or dried pasta actually has more to do with the sauce that you're going to be pairing it with.
Fresh pasta is extremely light and cooks in minutes. For that reason, it doesn't quite get that al dente bite that dried pasta can have. Pair lighter fresh pasta with a sauce that's equally lightweight and smooth to keep the dish balanced. Dried pasta takes longer to cook and is better for heartier, bulkier sauces because it has better structure when it cooks.
Which sauces to pair fresh and dried pasta with
Examples of sauces for fresh pasta include anything butter- or cream-based. Even a light Alfredo sauce made from cottage cheese is great with fresh fettuccine. Fresh pasta is also an excellent choice when you want the flavor of the pasta to shine through by pairing it with a basic sauce made from butter and an herb — the only two ingredients you need to make pasta sauce in a flash. You can also use fresh pasta's water as the base for a light sauce; just boil the pasta in as little water as possible to get a higher concentration of starch, which will help a light sauce come together with ease.
Dried pasta does best with heartier sauces, such as a ragu meat sauce. Those firm al dente noodles hold up to the sauce better than fresh pasta, so the two go well together. There is one exception to this rule though. A hearty homemade bolognese sauce should actually be served with fresh egg pasta because that's the way it's traditionally prepared in Italy. If you're going for the traditional method, then you should pair bolognese with fresh pasta. But if the true technique doesn't matter, it's fine to go the dried pasta route.