Rinse spaghetti for cold salads. Stop worrying about it.

Yes, rinse it.

For a cold pasta salad, you want the pasta to stop cooking immediately and to wash away the surface starch. If you don’t rinse, the spaghetti will keep steaming and clump together as it cools. Nobody wants a gummy, sticky mess when they’re trying to toss it with veggies and dressing.

The controversy comes from the Italian grandmothers and serious pasta nerds who yell that you should never rinse pasta. They’re right—for hot pasta. The starch left on the surface helps sauce cling to the noodles. Rinsing that off for a hot dish is a crime. But a cold salad is a completely different situation. You’re not relying on starch-sauce adhesion. You’re relying on vinaigrette or mayo coating the noodles evenly, and you don’t want them glued into one sad lump.

Some people argue that rinsing removes flavor. Maybe a tiny bit of salty pasta water flavor, but cold salads usually get seasoned with the dressing anyway. Not worth the trade-off.

Just rinse it under cold water, toss with a little oil so they don’t stick, and move on with your life.