Pasta Chips

Why This Pasta Chips Works

In the oven, the cooked rigatoni dries out and firms up. The pasta already has its shape from boiling, so it doesn’t collapse. Instead, the heat slowly drives out the extra water inside each tube. As the moisture leaves, the outside of the pasta hardens and starts to crisp, kind of like a crouton made from noodles.

While the pasta bakes, the olive oil coats every piece and lets the edges brown instead of just drying out and turning tough. The garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and salt stick to the oily surface, so they stay in place and don’t fall off. Flipping the pasta halfway through lets more sides hit the hot air and the pan, so more of each piece becomes crunchy.

Once the hot pasta comes out of the oven, the grated Parmesan softens a bit on contact and clings to the rough, crispy surface. As the pasta cools for a few minutes, it finishes firming up, so it stays crunchy instead of chewy.

Mistakes To Avoid

Boiling the pasta until it’s very soft makes the chips almost impossible to crisp. In the oven, overcooked rigatoni collapses and turns tough and chewy instead of light and crunchy, so the centers stay a bit gummy even when the edges brown.

Crowding the baking sheet causes the pasta to steam instead of dry out. When the rigatoni sit too close together, the trapped moisture keeps them soft, so they come out leathery with only a few pieces turning properly crisp.

Letting the pasta sit after tossing with oil and spices can also cause trouble. As it sits, the surface soaks up the oil unevenly and starts to clump, so some pieces burn on the edges while others stay pale and soft.

Adding the Parmesan before baking seems tempting but backfires. The cheese melts and spreads onto the parchment, where it burns into hard, bitter patches while the pasta underneath stays less crisp and sometimes sticks to the pan.