The Cookware Upgrade Pasta Lovers Should Consider

At first glance, sauciers and saucepans look like the same thing. But the saucier\'s rounded shape does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to finishing a pasta directly in the sauce — and who better to ask about it than Meredith Hayden? The creator of Wishbone Kitchen and author of \"The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook\" recently partnered with Barilla as the pasta producer expands its Al Bronzo line with organic certification and a new radiatori shape, and she knows a thing or two about sauciers. 

\"I staged at Misi in Brooklyn when I was a culinary student, which is basically a pasta-only restaurant. And I remember they had four or five line cooks that would all be working on different pastas at a time, and each would have two of those pots going at once. And that\'s where I\'ve first seen that style of pot,\" Hayden recalled of saucier pans. \"I find that it works best when you\'re working with one or two servings of pasta,\" she advised.

The saucier\'s gently sloped walls fundamentally change how pasta, sauces, and risotto behave during cooking. Because it doesn\'t have any sharp angles, this solves a lot of pasta problems. No sauces, cream, or starch will collect in the sides or corners, and your whisks, wooden spoons, and spatulas will elegantly glide around the entire cooking surface. Plus, the cleanup is a lot easier, since nothing is stuck and burning to the side corners.

You should always finish pasta directly in the sauce rather than simply dumping it over the noodles. It\'s why the restaurant saucepan deserves a spot on your stove, and why the old-school kitchen brigade system has a dedicated saucier chef. Chefs transfer partially cooked pasta into a pan with sauce and starchy pasta water, then toss it all together until the sauce emulsifies — exactly the kind of situation a saucier was made for, all thanks to those rounded sides.

That said, if you\'re cooking for a large dinner party, you might need something even bigger. \"When I\'m cooking for a crowd, whether it be four or six servings, I really like using a nice wide slightly shallow Dutch oven or saute pan, so I can really have enough room to toss all of the pasta in that sauce,\" explained Meredith Hayden. However, many high-end cookware brands do feature different sizes of sauciers, some as large as six quarts. 

No matter which pan you choose, Hayden\'s biggest recommendation for finishing pasta in a saucier is to let it simmer for one to two minutes. \"That way the pasta has a chance to really absorb the sauce rather than just be tossed into it,\" she said.