Stop pasta water from boiling over the pan every time with simple kitchen item

Pasta is a great, easy meal and preparing the delicious carb only takes a pan of boiling water. However, it can be annoying when you look away for a minute and the water has boiled over the top of the pan.

And often the starchy water burns down the side of the pan and on the hob, giving off a singed, bitter smell. And this can happen even with the lid on. But there is a simple way to stop this from happening using an item you certainly have in your kitchen already. All you are going to need is a wooden spoon.

Simply place a wooden spoon across the top of the pan when you start boiling your pasta.

This creates a natural cooling barrier for any bubbling steam, stopping it from foaming over the lip of the pan.

By doing this, you can walk away from the pot for a minute or two and have the wooden spoon avert disaster long enough for you to notice and turn down the heat.

It does this by providing a cool object that brings the temperature of the steaming, bubbling water back down into a liquid, which retreats back into the pan.

But you should only ever use a wooden spoon, as a metal spoon will heat up to the same temperature as the pan quicker than wood and will no longer have the desired effect.

It is also important to remember to always take great care when removing your wooden spoon from the pan, using a tea towel is recommended, as it will be quite hot.

The wooden spoon method is helpful when you have over parts of your recipe to focus on in the kitchen, but not meant for the entirety of a cooking time.

Other ways to reduce the risk of it boiling over are to look at how much water you actually need in the pan. Overfilling a pan can lead to it overboiling.