Why It's A Mistake To Break Long Pasta Before Putting It In A Pot
You may hear every now and then that breaking your long pasta before putting it in the boiling water is a culinary sin to all Italians everywhere. While nothing bad will happen if you do decide to do this to your bucatini or pappardelle to have it better fit in your pots, it's better if you leave it as is. While you think this may be hard with the long pieces and smaller pots that look like they won't work, breaking the pasta is definitely a pasta rule you should never break.
While this debate can be quite a long discourse between those who believe breaking pasta is absolutely not allowed and those who do it every time, there seems to be a right and wrong in the culinary community. Breaking the pasta could create not just two shorter pieces but smaller third pieces that will overcook and change the texture of the whole dish and splinter all over your kitchen floor, which doesn't sound pleasing to us (via The Washington Post). So besides the mess of it all, why is it a mistake to break that long pasta up?
It's just not right
Keep in mind that pasta formed as long noodles like spaghetti, fettuccine, and capellini, are made to be long for a reason. Long pasta holds the pasta sauce better, allowing for fuller, more flavorful bites of your pasta. While there are smaller pastas out there, each pasta has a specific purpose and messing with the shape may mess with the flavor you're trying to get. They are also made long so you can wind the pasta around your fork, the way long pasta is supposed to be eaten, rather than trying to scoop the dish up with the utensil (via Slate).
If you can't fit the pasta in the pot you're using and your instinct is to break the noodles, try using a bigger pot instead. This allows for more space without breaking the pasta into short weird shapes. You could also try different pasta shapes if your pots can't fit the long pasta, like farfalle (bowtie), rotini (spirals), and rigatoni (via What's for Dinner). All in all, while breaking the pasta won't do anything risky, you do want to try and make the perfect pasta every time and leaving the long pasta long is a good place to start.