When cooking pasta ALWAYS make sure water is boiling heavily and that there is a much larger quantity of water than pasta, as if both of those conditions don't exist, pasta will release too much starch and become sticky. Also, make sure you salt water. Although it was a slight exaggeration, one chef I worked under always informed us how (in a real deep accent) "ze water must taste like ze sea." You should always salt your water (taste water to make sure it's right consistency), as that adds greatly to flavor of pasta.

There is a large variety of pasta sauces you can use as well. For a lighter summer dish, you may want to use a simple broth, aglio e olio (garlic and hot olive oil) sauce, Checca (lightly toast some garlic in olive oil then add basil and tomatoes until warm, season) sauce, or maybe a pesto (an uncooked puree of basil, garlic, and parmesan, then adding olive oil to your preferred consistency - for pasta you can also finish it with cream) sauce. For not so light pasta dishes, you can use a carbonara (make a basic cream sauce starting it with cooking bacon until very crispy and finishing it with romano cheese) sauce, alfredo (basic cream sauce finished with parmesan) sauce, a variety of other cream sauces, bolognese (meat sauce) sauce, marinara (a cooked tomato sauce made with garlic, onions, and herbs) sauce, other tomato-based sauces, and many more.

You can combine in sauce and/or garnish pasta with a variety of ingredients. The most common meats include Italian sausage, chicken, seafood, ham, duck confit, anchovies, and beef. Other common ingredients include parmesan (or other) cheese, grilled or roasted vegetables (large dice various vegetables, toss them in oil, garlic, salt & pepper, and roast them quickly to golden brown in a VERY hot oven), roasted pepper strips, mushrooms, and a variety of herbs.

Pasta is such a versatile ingredient that it has an almost endless amount of variations that can be used in some sense in almost any theme of a meal or restaurant.

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