This is why you should always buy expensive pasta, according to an Italian chef
The quality of the meal depends on the quality of the ingredients
![The number one mistake when cooking Italian food at home (Stock)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2018/08/20/15/istock-852749458.jpg)
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Louise Thomas
Editor
Most people know that cooking Italian food at home successfully largely depends on using the freshest ingredients.
Whether it is using a homemade sauce, or fresh-picked basil from the garden, the quality of each component is integral to making the meal taste like it came from a restaurant.
However, there is one step that home chefs often overlook when whipping up their favourite carb-heavy dish - and it can jeopardise the entire meal.
As the backbone of the meal, how the pasta was produced plays a huge role in bringing the dish together - and cheap pasta just won’t cut it.
According to a New York City Italian chef, it is because the texture is all wrong.
Lou Tomczak, chef at Beebe’s, told The Independent: “More expensive pasta is made with higher quality flour and often extruded through brass and bronze pieces, which makes the texture rough.”
While a rough texture doesn’t necessarily sound like a good thing, it comes in handy for dishes that require a lot of sauce.
![Creating the perfect pasta dish is all about the quality of the pasta (Stock)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2018/08/20/15/istock-867418088.jpg)
“The rough texture is better for holding onto sauces,” Tomczak told us.
The brass and bronze tools used to turn out the pasta shapes are the reason - as it is the same method used for creating pasta in Italy, according to Epicurious.
With mass-produced pasta, the pasta is extruded through machines created to do the job quickly, so the penne and rigatoni come out uniformly smooth.
![Good pasta has a rougher texture (Stock)](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2018/08/20/15/istock-607271928.jpg)
Although the commercial pasta may cost less in the grocery store, the texture will ultimately leave you wanting as the sauce fails to flavour the overly-mushy tortellini.
To create the perfect Italian pasta dish, splurging for a higher-quality pasta will ensure that the sauce and the pasta flavours marry - transforming even the simplest of spaghetti dishes.
As Tomczak told us: "If it's made with high quality ingredients and love, it generally tastes pretty awesome."
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