How can I purposely get clumps in my spaghetti

I’ve actually done this before.

Tie a whole pound of spaghetti up with some butcher twine. Cook it like normal. Remove the twine after it’s cooked. Cut your spaghetti rope into 1” thick slices.

I find that I unintentionally produce this effect when I overcrowd the pasta in a pan and forget to agitate it while it is cooking. As the pasta softens it becomes sticky and holds to the neighboring pieces of pasta. Let it go like this long enough and it becomes irreversible, as the pasta fuses into clumps. Also, I am not sure that you want to risk it with the amount of pasta that you have at the moment, but another way to produce a variation on this is to par cook the pasta, cool it down, and then mix in some eggs and Parmesan for a spaghetti bake. When you bake this for a while - on a 9x13 baking dish, for example - the pasta becomes clumped together thanks to the binding affect of egg. Maybe something to try on down the line.

First thing is to buy the “cheapest” pasta you can find. Generic or store brands. It should be very smooth and shiny on the outside when it’s dry. Good pasta has much less of a tendency to stick overall. Usually this is desirable, but obviously this is a unique case.

Then I’d say once you get it in the water stir infrequently and maybe slightly over cook. Might take practice to get it where you want.

Pretty sure cheap pasta has less protein for structure and leaches/bursts more starch when you cook which causes more sticking

Bare minimum amount of water, and don't stir it at all. That'll work, I promise.

Also, I don't know what your son's eating habits are like, or how he approaches new foods, but if he likes the taste and texture of clumped together spaghetti, there's a good chance he'd like gnocchi.

Does it have to be spaghetti? I find dried fettuccine always sticks together when I cook it, so much so that I don’t even try to cook it anymore.

If you can briefly dip the dry spaghetti in boiling water then take it out and let it re-dry - ideally with rubber bands etc. clamping the spaghetti strands as tightly to each other as possible - you should have a fair amount of stuck-together dry pasta. Then I guess cook as usual but without stirring or anything else that might break up the clumps.

Might be worth testing the first part of this on just a few strands of spaghetti, to make sure they'll stick. If they don't they can still be cooked normally.

Everyone seems to have answered the question, so I just want to say that this reminded me of when I was little, I would ask my mom to make my Cream of Wheat with lumps. I loved the lumps and bless my mom for humoring me. You’re a good parent, OP. 🤜💥🤛

Ok so I LOVED this as a kid. I’m going to get hate for this but...

Microwave it.

Like cook it IN the microwave. In a Tupperware or something, break the dry noodles in half and fill it with some water, microwave for like... 8ish minutes on and off so it doesn’t boil over.

I did that so much and I got chunky pasta. Especially when I did that, let it refrigerate, and ate the rest the next day. I called them Pasta Steaks.

So salt the hell out if the water. Cook the noodles. Drain and let sit for a bit. As the noodles dry, they'll stick together (if you use the cheaper grocery store pasta) finally i would cook it a minute or two longer than necessary to help this along

Look up recipes for spaghetti pie, which is made by cooking spaghetti, adding a binder, then baking. It may not reproduce the exact texture that your kiddo wants, but may be worth a shot!

Not sure if this is exactly the clump idea, but it’s similar & my son LOVED them....

I made the great-grandma’s baked ziti recipe off of r/oldrecipes last week but used pasta from my pantry: rigatoni & penne. A BUNCH of penne went INTO the rigatoni and boiled into double noodles. I tried to pull out the ones I spotted thinking my kids wouldn’t like it-my son said those were his FAVORITE. Called them big boys lol. (He’s 24!)

Maybe you could deliberately do this (maybe even put ANOTHER noodle inside the penne?) for the thickness of it? Not sure if that’s what makes him happy about the clumpy noodles though....

Just don't stir the pasta :)

Also can I just say that this is so sweet how you are meeting your child’s needs, paying attention, and taking the time to enrich his life ? May seem small little things but bring so much joy to him. That’s beautiful !

This thread is everything!

I guess you can cook the pasta witout stirring the pot. Have a roaring boil go then put the pasta in and scoop it out when its done. But if suggest cooking it in batches so that the pasta can be all the way cooked. That would be my best guess

Cook pasta in a shallow pan with just enough water to cover. Do not stir and there you go. Normally if you want regular pasta you stir it alot. It saves water an creates a super starchy pasta water that is perfect for sauces.

What if you just tied together the whole serving of spaghetti with cooking twine and boiled it while tied together?

The answer is crowd the pot of water with pasta and don’t stir it. Then when you drain before adding to sauce let it sit without agitating or trying to separate the pasta. This will achieve maximum clumpiness.

I dont know If spaghetti is the only option but shell pasta clumps naturally no matter how hard you try to stop it

Tried to edit my original comment but couldn't find it. Try wrapping it with stainless steel wire or elastic bands, maybe in bundles about the size of a sharpie barrel.

Maybe cheesecloth wrapped with butcher's twine.

So. I kinda figured out a way a looooong while ago. Wet the posta in a small bowl first for about 2 min. Then let dry again. The pasta should stick together a bit once dry. Cook it then and you should have those lumps

I created this last night by over cooking my pasta. When I drained it, it all melted together and letting it cool like that made bigger clumps.

You could cook and cool the spaghetti, then take a strand and tie it into knots? If you kept tying one piece into knots it would eventually be a chunk. Maybe i’m overthinking this...

Overcook it a bit. Drain it. Stir it a couple of times. Put it in the fridge. Reheat in microwave to eat

Would overcooked raviolis work? (asking for future so that you don't have to cook a separate meal for him)

Maybe Try baking it in a 9x13 dish in the oven with just enough salted boiling water to cover it. Just cook it with a little flour coating them to help stick them together and a little over done then chill.

Has your kiddo ever tried Tteokk? They're basically hella thicc rice noodles and stay super chewy. I am such a Tteokk fiend. I love Gungjung Tteokkbokki. And to be honest... Tteokk and meatballs sounds like it's what's for dinner tonight.

My father was king of this. Use a med saucepan, do not fill to the top, leave plenty of headspace. 2-3 quarts for a pound of pasta. Snap spaghetti in half, lower gently and immediately into water while still in a half-pound round. Repeat with the other side too, gently placing it in the water in the same direction as the previous handful. Gentle placement is required to insure plenty of contact points for sticking.

Do not stir. Do not raise heat, use only medium setting no matter what you cook. These conditions assure a low water to pasta ratio, and thus needing longer to return to boil. This time, combined with the high starch level of the water with so much pasta in it, guarantees strong starch production. In fact, we often had to add water to make the starch drainable when done cooking, as it had become almost pudding. This can lead to burnt pasta if you go over medium heat, do not skip this step or you get burnt food.

You may attack the pasta log with a fork while cooking to reduce the size clumps into manageable sizes and to assure some cooking of the log's center. You will know it is time when the water becomes cloudy and the starch makes witch's brew bubbles

Dad opens jar of pasta sauce at table, you ask when Mom is coming home.

For the future, are shells acceptable in place of spaghetti? Every time I make shells no matter what I do half of them stick together so I feel like this would be an easy route.

But like others have said, using too small a pot should force them together and dont stir (after the first stir just so they dont stick to the bottom). Maybe slightly undercook them as well so they have more bite similar to stuck together noodles that haven't cooked through.

If you've got flour and eggs (and some extra time) you can also make homemade noodles. By twisting/braiding them together before boiling you could make custom 'all chunk' spaghetti. This won't work with dried pastas, but luckily pasta dough is really simple.

Happy spaghetti chunking, and happy birthday to your kiddo :)

I love everything about this thread's potential for 'it went so wrong it was perfect' ideas.

Google “spaghetti pie recipe”, similar texture

If you want to guarantee some clumpage but not all, I suggest using kitchen twine to tie small bundles together as tight as you can without breaking the uncooked noodles, then do not rinse the pasta when you drain it let it cool and clump while it drains. Good luck.

1. Boil your water.
2. Turn down the heat and let the water come back
3. Put pasta in, don’t stir, don’t agitate
4. Make sure the water is still hot enough to cook the past all the way through
5. Carefully drain your water

Feel like that should do the trick! Oh, and don’t salt your water. If you ever make pasta for yourself in non-chunk form, make it salty than the mediterranean!

(grandma was a pasta queen)

You could probably cook it in an overcrowded pot and then let it all cool in a container together in the fridge after it’s strained then heat the sauce and maybe microwave the noodles. We do something similar for a child with autism that I babysit for

Overcook it, use less water, dont stir.

This reminds me of when my Dad used to make farina (some type of cream of wheat hot cereal) I used to like the clumps. He would put egg in it too but the clumps themselves had like an egg consistency. It was him fucking up in some way but yet I can't replicate it properly.

Make spaghetti chunks in bite sized chunkies, and then cook them.

1. Take the dried spaghetti and put it in a bowl, and pour warm water over it. Just enough to get it all wet, not enough that it is swimming in it.
2. Gather small bundles of the wet spaghetti (4-5 strands), and squeeze them with both hands to get the starches to stick the strands to each other, and put your "clump strands" on a plate while you finish gathering the rest of the strands into clumps.
3. Put your now thick spaghetti clump strands into high boil water, and let them cook for at least 12-15 minutes before trying a taste test. Beware! The starches will promote boil-over, so reduce the heat somewhat once you put the spaghetti in, but not so much you lose the boil. (Or use a really honking big pot...)
4. (Edit) After draining, use scissors to cut the strands into bite sized chunks.

I'm the same way about clumps in my cream of wheat, so IKR on the spaghetti.Best of success to you!~Spuddlebuns

Don’t stir the pasta for 2-5min after you put it in the water. It’ll clump together by then but you’re going to run into the issue of the pasta sticking to the pot.

Idk the answer.

But you’re a really really awesome parent. And your kid is so lucky to have you.

As someone who makes spaghetti every week for a young man with autism, can I just say how much I love that over 300 people commented with ideas and not even questioning the "why" or try to convince you to change what you. It is my job to make the spaghetti every week because I am the only one who does it the exact right way. One tiny change and he won't eat it again. Good luck with the spaghetti clumps!

I used to like that too. I think it happened when i did not stir enough amd also if you strain them after cooking and leave in the strainer for a while maybe put a lid on. What i also still like is when spätzle stick together and make a "spatz" maybe that is something your son might also like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sp%C3%A4tzle?wprov=sfla1 disregard the first picture of the storebought ones and maybe look at the pictures of the german and french article.

Happy Birthday to your son!!!

Linguine does this more than spaghetti

Try Fettuccini.

What I would do is cook the pasta normally drain it in a strainer and then let it sit in the strainer for 15 to 20 minutes they all stick together and then you can cut slices off of it for him

Side note, I get your results easier with egg noodles, may be fun experiment in the future. Drain, let them sit, big gunk noodle

Maybe try making little piles and steaming it?

Mine always clumps when I get distracted and forget to stir it.

Pre-wet the pasta and let it dry clumped together.

Over crowded, and don’t stir as much

I agree with the “throw it in an overcrowded pan and don’tstir” advice, but I just can’t to wish your kid the happiest of birthdays! You’re going to do great!

do not stir your pasta

I say boil all the noodles in the pot, don't move them around and when draining the water don't add any oil or butter because it'll cause them to separate. Draining the noodle and pouring them in a bowl to cool down might work the best just cause the noodle to shape to the bowl and clump together. I at least know what your talking about with the Spaghetti cause I use to accidentally do it a lot as a kid when I made it.

Use a smaller pot than normal so that when you put in the spaghetti it sticks out about halfway. Add spaghetti to the pot with cold water, set to boil, and then don’t touch until it’s done.

Maybe not for this go round, but in the future, could be helpful to try Orecchiette. I find this shape clumps together very easily if you don't constantly stir it while cooking.

Good suggestions here and I'll just add a detail to whichever method you choose: break the dry noodles in half before you begin. More, shorter noodles means more chances for clumping and reduced chance that noodles will pull apart after cooking.

I find that if you put the noodles in the salted boiling water and DONT stir it in or mix it right away, that’s when they tend to form spaghetti ropes

Don’t stir the pasta in the cooking water.

Two ways.

1] Break the dry spaghetti in half. Put broken up spaghetti into the water and don't stir it at all. (DO NOT use oil in the water) Trouble with that is you can end up with tooth-shattering uncooked pasta in the middle of the clump.

2] Break the dry spaghetti in half. Cook the broken spaghetti, stirring to keep from clumping (DO NOT use oil in the water). When the spaghetti is ready, put it in small piles with little or no space between the individual strands. Let it sit until they're stuck together like glue. This is probably the better method.

Those tall "pasta making" contraptions where you just add boiling water or put it in the microwave is a perfect way to get spaghetti clumps. As other people have said, it's all but not stirring. If you are boiling pasta in a pot, I would lightly remove the past from the bottom of the pan a few times throughout cooking, but avoid stirring it too much or too often.

Try doing the opposite of whatever this article recommends?

Right after the pasta cooks, remove it from the water and let it cool in close contact to other noodles. There's sticky starch at the surface of the cooked pasta, as this cools it will become pasty and sticky, this is your chance to create those clumps.

You could even cook the noodles, then transfer them to something like a tofu press and let them cool a little under some mild weight. They should form a sort of block. You could then cool this, and cut it into little spaghetti chunks for future use.

If you aren't getting enough adhesion try adding a little of the pasta water to the cooked noodles or make a slurry of corn starch and lukewarm water and pour that over the hot noodles. It should create a kind of glue that clumps everything together when it cools slightly.

Any of the flat-sides long pasta varieties to do this to me. Like linguine?

Take a small bundle of inexpensive pasta, hold it together, and very slowly lower the pasta bundle into the boiling water. It should stick with a bit of work

Dude! You need to get some angel hair pasta. If you overcook it and then let it cool in a lump it goes like one solid pasta block. Always used to have it on the trail and leftovers was the most disgusting thing. But yeah it makes clumps really easily

Put to much pasta in the pot and don’t mix as throughly lol. That’s really it. Good luck!

This is cute as hell Cook the pasta (prob doesn’t matter what kind) in as little water as possible without stirring When you dump it in the strainer, don’t touch it just let it sit. Let it cool a little bit then chop it up on a cutting board. Throw hat into meatballs and sauce which you have hot and ready to go. chefs kiss

Have you tried making pasta dough and then just rolling it into clumps? Like little pasta dumplings?

I learned that when I just toss the pasta in hot (not boiling water) and never stir them, so that they dont move around, they stick together really well. You could also just take some lint (is that the right word?) and bind them together

Your son should post on r/unpopularopinion lmao

I wonder if butchers twine would work

Put it in, just boiling water, not high heat, dont stir. At all.

A new suggestion: this might be best to try another time, but you could also boil the pasta, refrigerate it briefly, then fry it in a couple tablespoons of oil. You can get this nice crispy texture all over the pasta that the child might like more than regular "wet" noodles. Try it with sauce added before or after frying to see what you like more.

For a double whammy, follow the instructions above for clumpy chunks and fry those!

I would break it up and cook it like risotto. Adding water and stirring to for a kind of porridge.

I use a large saucepan (pot) not a large stockpot to cook noodles. When I add the noodles and don’t stir them after getting all the noodles under the boiling water, my noodles clump if not form one big mass. The pot just has water on it, no oil.

Bunch up and Dunk in boiling water then remove. The blanched outside will create the gluten glue holding it together. After this give it 30s or so before returning to the water. You can test this with literally 3 strands to get the same effect.

When cooking don't agitate too much, let it kind of naturally roll in the water

Chef here, when putting spaggoter in the boiling water do not fan it out. Hold it tight between your index finger and thumb. A slightly smaller than normal pot will help too. As it cooks bend the spaggoter to the shape of your pot till fully submerged. This is when you don’t stir and keep and eye on it(could burn if stuck to the bottom). If done correctly it’ll come out like a giant pull and peel twizzler. You can also rubber band pasta together, or butchers twine. Hope this helps!

You could just use some butchers twine to tie a half inches of spaghetti together in a few spots.

I've seen pasta sold where the noodles are coiled into a ball for easy portioning, but then you have to stir the pot a lot to uncoil them. If you cook the whole box at once, you can't uncoil them and they clump.

Just don't agitate it much

Maybe break spaghetti in half, cook a few sticks until half done in very little water, then roll in a ball? Like a meatball made from sketti? Complete guess... but now I'm gonna try it.

/u/MmmHmmYupDatsMe's comment about penne getting stuck inside of rigatoni and other comments about bundling the spaghetti with string or rubber bands made me think... maybe if you jammed uncooked spaghetti inside uncooked penne or rigatoni (or any hollow tube shaped pasta) and cooked them in shallow water and didn't stir it, the result could be these chunks you seek?

You could also make home made pasta. Usually it’s mix the ingredients, make a thin sheet, roll together and slice. Now at this point you usually unroll the individual noodles but you can just mostly unroll and leave some together which makes it stick and gives you what you want.

Wrap it with twist ties before you cook it.

If you use fettuccine instead of normal spaghetti it does this very easily. I always tried to avoid it with fettuccine and still end up with clumps. :)

Cheap pasta (make sure there is no "bronze cut" on it, steel cut pasta is cheaper, smoother and will tend to stick more). Cook it in as little water as possible, and don't agitate it while boiling.

One thing I can also suggest is cooking the pasta wrong. That means tossing the spaghetti in the pot while the water is still cold. Then, when the pasta is halfway done, put a lid on it and let it sit there and coast to doneness. This way you will extract way more starch and, as the water gets cold, since you have very little water it will gelatinise and make the strands stick to one another.

So: cheap pasta in very little cold water, turn off heating before it's done and let it finish slowly until lukewarm.

You should try all the different pasta shapes and maybe there’s one he’ll really love. Cavatappi, rigatoni, spirals have that chewy bite to them. Maybe some gnocchi with tomato sauce would be good too. Hope you find a winner!

I have no advice but in the future try making cavatelli or gnocchi, they are very easy to make from scratch as well if you have nowhere to buy them. My cousin is a chef and his almost 3 year old helps him do the last little fold in cavatelli. He put a video on social media and it was pretty cute. It might be a great thing to do with a special needs child as well, I wish I was making/playing with some pasta instead of playdough at that age.

Cook it in the smallest saute pan, not pot, that will fit it, with as little water as possible. Don't stir it even once, and when you strain it, put it in the colander and let it sit for like 30min before giving it a shake.

I would let it dry together on colander after cooking

I'd say just don't break the pasta when you put it in, and hold one end leaning up on the edge of the pot.

Fettuccine tends to stick together on me more frequently than spaghetti, you can also find some food / heat safe Rubbermaid or just butcher's twine and bundle the noodles together before cooking. And that should produce the desired effect.

Step 1: Cook a small amount of pasta to al dente. You only want a few dozen strands.

Step 2: Break the rest of the box into thirds, so your uncooked strands are nice and short.

Step 3: Use the cooked pasta to wrap up chunks of the broken dried pasta. Go around a few times. Don’t try to tie a knot, you won’t need it anyway.

Step 4: Nestle the chunks in boiling salted water. Don’t agitate or stir for the first few minutes. Remove the pre-cooked strands if you prefer, although they will likely be glued to the chunks.

By the way, I wonder if you could sell him on a bigger pasta? Like broken lasagna noodles?

I have a son on the spectrum, after ten years of special classes he’s mainstream now. Good luck with everything.

I just saw this recipe. It might be something you could make in the future to see if he would like it:

Weight Watchers spaghetti donuts:

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Transform your usual saucy pasta into a fun handheld snack—or a memorable meal for your kids that they’re guaranteed to request again. Twirling spaghetti into donut molds and binding it with a little egg helps it hold into a perfectly portable shape. The pasta remains moist and saucy within, with deliciously crunchy outside edges. To turn this into a heartier meal, serve yourself two spaghetti donuts along with a simple side salad.

It's not chunks, and the chunks are special, so I think you should stick to your idea of a whole bowl of birthday chunks. This is just something you might try in the future! :)

Wouldn't al dente acini di pepe produce this?

Use inexpensive orecchiette and don't stir too much. That shit is guaranteed to clump.

After cooking it, let it cool in the strainer. The whole thing will be a clump. When you put the sauce on itll heat up but still leave the clumps

Silicone bands around bundles before boiling should leave dense clumps of half-cooked pasta when removed after boiling

Don’t stir it while it’s cooking and slightly undercooked

Cook it in insufficient water

Dont stir it. (I LOVE the clumps... im a weirdo!)

Fresh pasta is great for this. I buy fresh pasta from TJ’s and can never unclump it gracefully. I, too, enjoy the pasta chunks so I don’t mind at all.

I'm just guessing here because I am normally trying to avoid that, but I would try getting a pot large enough that you can fit the entire spaghetti noodles into the water at once and then do not stir as they cook. Not 100% sure how that would turn out, but it might be a success.

It might take some experimentation because you are definitely bucking the trend. But, you've got a pretty good reason for bucking the trend so it is worth doing.

Instant Pot tends to clump. To avoid clumping, recipes generally say to spread the noodles around so they're not all parallel to each other. If you have an instant pot, maybe try cooking the noodles in there & keeping them all close to parallel. You can even put the sauce & pre-made meatballs in before cookin, so its pretty simple to make.

https://www.simplyhappyfoodie.com/instant-pot-spaghetti-and-meatballs/

Basically this ^ but do the opposite of suggested in step 2.

Commenting in support of this question. Low water amount, you could even tie a bundle of pasta with string, boil together, and then cut into smaller chunks

*mom's spaghetti

I've not read all the comments but what about finding a way to bind 3+ dry noodles for the cooking process? String or something and then break into chunks or leave as an intact longer piece. My understanding of why it happens is, as another user said, overcrowded pot where the pasta is always touching another during the cooking process. You're just basically melting the noodles together.

You can try baking it.

Cake pan, pasta, thin layer hot water. Cover with foil, oven at 425° until soft (usually at least 20 minutes, depending on the pasta).

This works best with lasagna noodles, but might work with spaghetti noodles. (I've also used it for wide rice noodles as well).

If your son isn't picky about the TYPE of pasta, lasagna sheets (not the "oven ready" kind) are relatively easy to cook together into a pasta chunk.

BEST PARENT EVER!

You might want to try bundling the pasta up and moistening, like dip or run under water, and let it sit for a little bit until the dampened noodles soak up enough water to be smushable. This may help them stay in place once submerged

Dont stir the pasta when cooking

If you have a rice cooker, make the pasta in a rice cooker since you were going to snap them anyway. Just enough water to cover the pasta.