Pasta Water And Salt Calculator

Work out pasta water and salt instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Pasta Water And Salt Calculator

The classic ratio is one litre of water per 100 g of dry pasta with salt at about 1% of the water weight; dry pasta roughly doubles in weight as it absorbs water. Too little water drops the temperature when the pasta goes in and concentrates released starch, which is what makes pasta stick and cook unevenly.

Formulas

Water

litres = pasta in kg x litres per kg

Salt

salt grams = litres x 1000 x salt percentage

Worked example

With the default values below, Pasta Water And Salt Calculator returns Water needed of 5.00. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Dry pastaminimum 10 g: 500 g
Water per kilogram of pastaminimum 1 L: 10 L
Salt as a share of the wateraccepts 0–5 %: 1 %

Results

Water needed: 5.00 L
Salt to add: 50.0 g
Salt in teaspoons: 8.3
Approximate cooked weight: 1,100 g

Step by step

1Values used
2Water
3Salt
4Water needed= 5.00 L
5Salt to add= 50.0 g
6Salt in teaspoons= 8.3
7Approximate cooked weight= 1,100 g

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 3 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is the Pasta Water And Salt figure worked out?

litres = pasta in kg x litres per kg. The classic ratio is one litre of water per 100 g of dry pasta with salt at about 1% of the water weight; dry pasta roughly doubles in weight as it absorbs water.

Why does this matter?

Too little water drops the temperature when the pasta goes in and concentrates released starch, which is what makes pasta stick and cook unevenly.

What do I need to enter?

Enter dry pasta, water per kilogram of pasta, salt as a share of the water. The defaults shown are a realistic worked example — swap in your own figures to get a result you can use.