How to cook pasta so you can stop spending a small fortune ordering food

Pasta is one of those perfect college foods. It's always a crowd pleaser and it's easy enough to make even if you hate cooking. You can easily whip up a pretty tasty dinner even if you're on the tightest budget. Just in case you're in doubt, here's how to cook pasta.

What you'll need

Let's start with the pasta. There's two basic types: hard and soft. Each kind has different pros and cons. The hard variety tends to be cheaper and keeps better. The downside is that it takes longer to cook than the soft kind. The soft pasta is usually found in the refridgerated section of the supermarket. It's got an experation date so you've got to make it semi-soon after you buy it. Once you get cooking though, it will be ready faster, which is always a plus.

No one likes dry pasta so we'd buy some sort of a sauce. You can pick up a jar of red sauce or whatever you prefer in dry goods area. Pesto is normally in the refridgerated section. If you're on the ultimate budget, you can revert back to your days eating on from the kids' menu and put some butter on your pasta. (No shame there cause buttered noodles are still delicious.) In the kitchen, you'll need a pot, sauce pan, and strainer.

How to make pasta

Fill the pot with water and place it on a stove top burner. Put the heat on high and wait for the water to boil. Once it's bumbling away, you can add in the pasta. If you're using noodles, don't break them. They'll bend into the pot once they loosen up a little.

Stir the pasta around as it cooks. The packaging with tell you how long it should take, but we'd keep an eye on things. Don't walk away from the burner! When the time is up, check the pasta by either tasting it or touching it once cool to make sure it's soft enough.

Put the strainer in the sink and pour the pasta and water over it. Shake the strainer to make sure you get any lingering water out. Leave the pasta in the strainer to cool while you get the sauce going. Pour it into the sauce pan or if you're feeling lazy, pour it into the now empty pot you just used. Put the burner on low. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes for the sauce to heat up. Throw the pasta back in the pan with the sauce once it's hot enough and then serve.