Salt your pasta water liberally.

Yes, salt is crucial—not for boiling point, but for flavor. And no, there’s no single precise amount, but there’s a good target.

The whole “salt raises the boiling point” thing is technically true but irrelevant unless you’re doing chemistry. You’d need so much salt to make a meaningful difference that your pasta would be inedible. The real reason is flavor: salting the water seasons the pasta from inside out as it absorbs water. You can’t fix bland pasta with sauce alone.

Precision is overrated, but the widely accepted range is 1-2% salt by weight of water. That’s 10-20 grams per liter. In spoon terms, about 1 to 2 teaspoons of fine table salt per liter. I lean toward the higher end for most dried pasta because you’re losing some salt down the drain. Taste your water—it should be noticeably salty, like the ocean, but not a brine you’d pickle in.

Don’t overthink it. Salt your water until it tastes like a pleasant sea, and you’ll be fine.