What Is the Swelling Power of Wheat Starch?

Pasta swells up with water as it cooks. The added mass is water, which has no calories. You're probably washing away a tiny, tiny handful of calories when you rinse your cooked pasta. Dried posta is generally not made with any salt in the dough. We generally salt our pasta boil water,. Because that's how we get salt into the pasta. And if you don't account for that salt when you're making your sauce, you end up with a really overly salty dish.