Pasta Timer
Pick your pasta shape and al dente or soft doneness for a fullscreen boiling timer with a mid-cook stir reminder, or enter custom minutes straight from the package.
Built by the AbraCalc team
How to play
- Pick your pasta shape from the chips — each one loads its own al dente and soft timing.
- Choose Al Dente for bite or Soft for fully tender, or flip on custom minutes to match your package instructions.
- Tap Start Boiling for a fullscreen countdown with a boiling-pot animation and a stir reminder partway through.
- When the timer hits zero, a distinct alarm and a DRAIN NOW prompt tell you it's time to get the pasta out of the water.
Every pasta shape wants a different amount of time in the pot, and the difference between al dente and soft is only a minute or two — easy to blow past while you're juicing lemons or grating cheese. This timer loads sane boiling-water times for seven common shapes, from four-minute angel hair to twelve-minute rigatoni, with al dente always shorter than soft since al dente is meant to keep some bite. A stir reminder chimes partway through so nothing clumps at the bottom of the pot, and if your box says something different you can punch in custom minutes and the timer will honor those instead.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is al dente always shorter than soft for the same shape?
- Al dente means 'to the tooth' — the pasta should still have a firm, slightly resistant core when you bite it. That firmness comes from stopping the cook a minute or two before the starch fully gelatinizes all the way through, which is why every shape's al dente preset here sits below its soft preset.
- The box says a different time than the preset — which do I trust?
- Trust the box for that specific product; brands vary in shape thickness and drying process, which shifts cook time by a minute or two even within 'spaghetti.' Flip on the custom-minutes toggle and enter the package's number — the timer will use that instead of the built-in preset.
- Why does the timer remind me to stir partway through instead of just at the end?
- Pasta is most likely to clump together in the first few minutes while the surface starch is still releasing, especially with long or ribbon shapes. A stir reminder around 40% into the cook — a distinct chime from the final alarm — catches that window without you having to hover over the pot the whole time.