The Foolproof Way Bobby Flay Finishes His Pasta Dishes

Pasta is one of those dishes that seems simple on the surface, but it's often quite tricky to get the restaurant-worthy result you're striving for. Luckily, chef Bobby Flay has a simple yet highly effective way to get the silkiest, richest finish to every carby bowlful. It involves just two ingredients: butter and parmesan.

The two ingredients work brilliantly just on their own to create a creamy and delicious sauce for pasta, without the need for any additional cream. The Italian dish, which is called pasta al burro, sees the cooked pasta tossed with Parmigiano-Reggiano or parmesan cheese, butter, and a little of the pasta water. This helps to emulsify the rich and silky sauce, which clings beautifully to the noodles — and in fact, it's the original version of what is now commonly known as a classic fettuccine Alfredo recipe.

Flay doesn't just use butter and parmesan to create a sauce in its own right, however. The chef and TV personality instead uses the two dairy favorites to enhance a variety of pasta dishes featuring other ingredients, from seafood to fresh tomatoes with basil. And it's not just about the taste; the two powerhouse ingredients also help to elevate the texture.

Parmesan adds an umami-rich salty and slightly nutty flavor to any pasta dish. In addition to this, is also creates a better consistency by helping the sauce to dress the noodles more effectively. To get the best results, it's not just a case of sprinkling a dusting of the cheese over the top of the finished dish. You need to add it while the pasta is in the pan — before you incorporate it with the sauce.

Bobby Flay's preferred order of adding the parmesan first is also Giada De Laurentiis' pro-tip for tossing cheesy pasta – after all, he learned it from her (per Food&Wine). Coating the noodles with the grated cheese means it starts to melt onto the surface of the pasta, and provides a better surface for the sauce to cling to once they're mixed together.

Butter, meanwhile, is a kitchen staple for adding richness and extra depth of flavor to all sorts of pasta sauces — and, like many chefs, Flay is a big fan. The dairy product tempers the sometimes harsh taste of ingredients like onions or acidic tomatoes. It also helps to emulsify the liquid sauce, bringing everything together for evenly coated noodles and a beautifully balanced result. So before you toss the cheese-coated pasta, make sure you enhance the sauce with a knob of butter for the perfect finish.

While butter and parmesan finish a pasta dish perfectly, it's important to start it right, too. Homemade noodles are always a delicious option, offering great flavor as well as texture. Fresh pasta takes time and effort — but Bobby Flay's pro tip for making fresh pasta in no time is to use a food processor to make things easier. It's not only fast, but it's also much less messy than the traditional method, too. If you'd rather use dried pasta, however, you can take comfort from the fact that Flay also keeps a variety of different shapes and sizes in his pantry for easy weeknight pasta recipes in a flash.

The chef and restaurateur is also a fan of store-bought shortcuts when it comes to making sauces. Flay revealed in an Instagram video that he always stocks canned San Marzano tomatoes, as well as some ready-made pasta sauces from Simply Sugo by Mutti. To enhance the flavor further, as Flay likes to do, you can add extra ingredients such as Calabrian chilis or fresh herbs — and don't forget the butter and parmesan, of course.

If you're using fresh delicate herbs such as basil, Flay adds them towards the end of the cooking time, so they keep their flavor and color, and don't wilt too much. And don't forget to always add a splash of pasta water to help the sauce and the pasta meld together for an extra-velvety result.