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I love making homemade pasta, and I've been making the beet pasta for a while (I use this recipe here http://natalieparamore.com/homemade-beet-pasta/). When I make the pasta, it gets a beautiful dark red color, like the pictures from the recipe; however, when I cook it, it loses most of it's color, and turns into a pink pasta, instead of the dark red. Is there a way to avoid this, or reduce the loss of color? Something I can add to the recipe, a different way to make it, or something I can do before cooking the pasta? Thanks

Jolenealaska
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Pascal
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  • Are you cooking for too long? Fresh pasta needs only a couple of minutes in the boiling water. I mean literally a couple. Most pasta I have made fresh (spaghetti sizes) is ready in less than 2 minutes in boiling water. Thicker pastas may need 3 minutes. – Escoce Feb 21 '16 at 17:01
  • If I cook right after I make it, it's "less worse", since it takes less time to cook, and it looses less color. If I leave it overnight to dry off, to consume the next day, it takes a while longer to cook, and it gets the pink coloring. For spinach pasta, the effect is not as bad, but for beet, it loses a lot of it's color – Pascal Feb 21 '16 at 17:07
  • Well generally fresh pasta isn't meant to be dried overnight. Beet juice is water soluble, spinach leaf not so much. – Escoce Feb 21 '16 at 17:11
  • Just checking if anyone knows a different way to make it, or maybe even a type of food coloring, that could be used. Or a technique to store it. I found that, if I froze it, and the cooked it, it loses less color. – Pascal Feb 21 '16 at 17:16
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    I've only made green (spinach) pasta. From a [related question](http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1664/what-ingredients-can-be-added-to-pasta-to-give-a-different-color), tomato paste was recommended for red color. I don't know if it'd be more stable (and if you could mix some in w/ the beets). – Joe Feb 21 '16 at 17:28
  • Oh if you just want color, then you have choices. A lot of people include coloring just as much for shift in flavor as the actual color presented. – Escoce Feb 21 '16 at 19:17
  • What choices do I have? Didn't understand what you meant by that. Tks – Pascal Feb 22 '16 at 02:06

2 Answers2

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You could use commercial food coloring. I wouldn't tell, and it wouldn't take much. I use this brand for baking, I'm sure it would be fine in pasta:

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Jolenealaska
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I tried making a natural pink cake using beets. The color always baked out. Online I found out that a more acidic batter could help. So, maybe some acid in your cooking water could help.

luckynumber3.com
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