Carla Hall Says Chefs Always Avoid These 3 Mistakes

When I ask myself who I want to be like in the kitchen, Carla Hall immediately comes to mind. The Top Chef All Star, cookbook author, and Southern cooking expert isn’t just an excellent chef — she’s also hilarious and adept at distilling kitchen advice into easy-to-understand tips. 

Earlier this summer, Hall shared a quick clip on YouTube revealing the “three things you won’t see chefs doing in the kitchen.” The common cooking techniques she goes on to highlight might not be par for the course for professional chefs but are often used in home kitchens across the country.

Some of these habits have been passed down from parents to children, and it may be controversial to suggest avoiding these familiar cooking methods — but, as always, the Chasing Home host has good reason for calling out each action that she says chefs avoid.

Of course, how you cook at home is entirely up to you, but Hall’s insights might change the way you prepare two popular ingredients, and at the very least, they’ll give you a glimpse into the mind and methods of a culinary professional.

Don’t add oil to pasta water

Adding olive oil to boiling water when cooking pasta makes sense because it acts as a lubricant and helps prevent the noodles from sticking. However, coating the pasta in oil can make it much harder for a sauce to stick to it after cooking, which is an essential step in creating a restaurant-quality dish.

There are other ways to prevent pasta from sticking together without ruining your ability to thoroughly coat it in a sauce. Make sure to use a large pot of water so the noodles have plenty of room, and salt the water generously.

Stir the pasta as soon as it hits the boiling water, and stir occasionally as it cooks. Finally, avoid overcooking the pasta. Overcooked noodles will not only stick together but also have a soft, gummy texture.

Don’t break pasta before cooking it

If you’ve ever cooked spaghetti, angel hair, linguine, or another long pasta shape, you’ve probably broken the noodles in half. (Hall even says, “Contrary to how I had my pasta growing up, do not break it.”) It’s a logical action; when half the pasta doesn’t fit in the boiling water, you break it to ensure all the noodles can be submerged and start cooking at the same time.

For many Italians, breaking pasta is considered disrespectful to the ingredient, but there are practical reasons to avoid doing it too. Keeping the noodles at their full length makes it easier to twirl them when eating. Twirling longer strands also helps gather more sauce into each bite, which can be hard to do with short or smooth noodles that lack crevices for holding sauce.

Don’t worry about the pasta not cooking evenly. If your spaghetti doesn’t all fit into the pot at once, wait a few seconds until the submerged parts soften, then push the rest of the noodles in.

Don’t wash chicken

This is where Hall gives the most in-depth explanation for why she cautions against a specific kitchen habit. Many American home cooks do wash raw chicken, but the best-selling author explains that you won’t see chefs doing this because “you’re adding moisture. Especially if you’re frying it, you’re never going to get that moisture out.” When frying or searing chicken for crispy skin, moisture works against you, and wet chicken skin will stay soggy. 

In addition to the effects of added moisture on the cooking process, Hall adds that “I understand why people were washing their chicken before; they were preserving it because there weren’t fridges. However, we now know that you need to cook your chicken to 165 degrees. Salmonella is not going to live at 165 degrees — you’re going to cook it out.”

In her short video, the chef also displays a tip from the United States Department of Health (USDA), which explains that washing or rinsing poultry can increase the risk of cross-contamination with foodborne pathogens in the kitchen.

As Hall points out in the very beginning of her video, she’s “invested in your successes in the kitchen.” So if you want to cook more like this Top Chef star, you might want to snag her cookbooks and start incorporating — or avoiding — these three kitchen habits.