There are many different types of pasta and they all bring different things to your dish, but it seems that no matter which type you are using, there's a clever way to tell if you've cooked it 'right'.
Pasta expert, Roberta d'Elia, who is originally from Puglia in southern Italy, has been sharing her top tips for cooking the perfect pasta with The Mirror, recently explaining what to do if you've added too much salt to your water and mistakes to avoid with carbonara.
And now she's back with another top tip which is all about ensuring your pasta is nice and al dente every single time you make it, which means that it will still be a little firm when you bite into it.
Roberta, who is the head pasta chef at Pasta Evangelists in London, explained that in order to get that traditional al dente taste when cooking dried pasta, you simply need to cook it for two minutes less than the instructions state on the packet.
So if your pasta should take 10 minutes, you would cook it for eight minutes.
For fresh pasta, you only need to cook it for two minutes, unless it has dried out a little, in which case you give it an extra minute.
"To check if it's ready, you'll be able to see fresh pasta float. I would probably wait another minute after this and then it is definitely ready," she said.
And to check if it's al dente, simply cut your piece of pasta in half to take a look at the 'soul' inside.
"Sometimes people ask me how can I see that the pasta is done, well, first of all, don't throw it at the wall or a cupboard to see if it's done, we don't do this in Italy," Roberta explains.
"What we do, is we take the spaghetti for instance, and we break it in half, and inside you will see a little white dot, we call it the soul.
"If the soul is still white it means that the pasta is perfectly al dente and you can then mix it with your favourite sauce and serve it."
And if you're wondering how best to cook your pasta, the expert has tips for this as well. She previously told The Mirror exactly how much water, pasta and salt you need.
"It's important to control your portions, we normally serve 100g of pasta per person and to cook the pasta to perfection you need enough space in the pan so the pasta can dance in the water," Roberta explained.
"You add 100g of pasta to one litre of boiling water and this way the pasta will cook perfectly and you'll have that al dente taste."
So if you were cooking for two people, you'd need 200g of pasta and two litres of water.
And when it comes to adding salt to the pan, the amount you add will depend on whether you're working with fresh or dried pasta, according to the expert.
"Salt in the water it is fundamental to get the best taste out of the pasta. When you cook fresh pasta then you can add up to 10g of salt per litre of water, but when you cook dry pasta be careful because dry pasta takes longer to cook," she adds.
"For dry pasta, I'd reduce the amount of salt and add 5g per 100g of pasta and litre of water."
Do you have a cooking trick to share? We want to hear all about it. Email courtney.pochin@mirror.co.uk
