How Much Salt for Pasta Water in Grams?

How much salt for pasta water? Aim for about 10 g of salt per liter of water, which is roughly 1% by weight. Serious Eats found that anywhere from 0.5% to 2% works depending on your taste, with 1% as the sweet spot, so the full range is about 5 to 20 g per liter.

Why a spoonful of salt is never just a spoonful

Most pasta advice is written in tablespoons, and that's where things go sideways. Salt crystals come in very different shapes, so the same spoon holds very different weights. According to the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart, 1 tbsp of table salt weighs 18 g, 1 tbsp of Morton kosher salt weighs 16 g, and 1 tbsp of Diamond Crystal kosher salt weighs just 8 g.

Here's what 10 g, the amount for 1 liter at 1%, looks like with each one:

• Table salt: about 1 2/3 tsp
• Morton kosher salt: just under 2 tsp
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt: about 1 1/4 tbsp

So if a recipe says "2 tbsp of salt" and doesn't name the brand, your pot could end up more than twice as salty as the writer intended. Grams don't care what the crystals look like. Ten grams is ten grams.

What the test kitchens actually recommend

America's Test Kitchen suggests 4 quarts of water per pound of pasta and 1 tbsp of table salt for every 4 quarts. That's 18 g in about 3.8 liters, or roughly 4.8 g per liter. In other words, it sits right at the gentle end of the range, close to 0.5%.

Serious Eats tested a wider spread and landed on 1% as the favorite, which is about double the ATK amount. Both are reasonable. The milder pot makes sense when your sauce is already salty, like one loaded with Parmesan, olives, capers or pancetta. The 1% pot shines with simpler sauces, like butter and herbs or a light tomato sauce, where the pasta needs to taste seasoned on its own.

Skip the old line about making the water "as salty as the sea." Seawater runs around 3.5% salt, and Serious Eats calls that far too salty for pasta.

How to measure salt for pasta water

1. Know your water amount. Use a measuring cup or the fill lines on your pot. Liters make the math easiest.
2. Multiply. Liters times 10 gives you grams of salt at 1%. Liters times 5 gives you the milder 0.5% pot.
3. Weigh the salt. Zero your scale with a small bowl on it and add salt until you hit the number.
4. Add it once the water boils. Stir so it dissolves, then add the pasta.
5. Taste the water. It should taste clearly seasoned, like a well salted soup, not like the ocean.

Once you find the level you like, write it down for your usual pot. If you always boil 4 liters, you only need to remember one number: 40 g.

Common mistakes to skip

• Switching salt brands without switching amounts. A tablespoon of Morton kosher salt weighs twice as much as a tablespoon of Diamond Crystal.
• Forgetting the pasta water you save. If you add a big splash of 1% pasta water to the sauce, taste before you add any more salt.
• Salting by feel in a new pot. A bigger pot means more water, so a handful that worked before may now be too little.
• Going heavy when the sauce is salty. Cheese and cured meat bring plenty of salt. Drop to about 5 g per liter for those dishes.

A quick tip for weeknights: a MeasureMate digital measuring spoon lets you scoop and weigh in one step. Press the tare button to zero the reading, scoop salt until the display shows your number, and tip it into the pot. For a big pot you might need two or three scoops, which is easy since it weighs up to 500 g and reads in 0.1 g steps.

Quick questions

How much salt for a pound of pasta?

With ATK's 4 quarts of water, use 18 g (1 tbsp of table salt) for a milder pot or about 38 g for 1%. That's just over 2 tbsp of table salt or close to 5 tbsp of Diamond Crystal kosher salt.

Can I salt pasta water by taste instead?

You can, but taste is hard to judge when water is boiling hot. Weighing gets you to the same result every time, and you can still taste and adjust the next batch.

Weights based on Serious Eats pasta water testing, America's Test Kitchen, and the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart.