Buttered Egg Noodles Recipe

This is how to cook egg noodles that are lightly buttered. They’re perfect to top with beef stroganoff, or on the side as a simple but delicious side dish.

Which Noodles To Use

My favorite egg noodles to use as a side dish are the wide ones. They fill the plate well and have a satisfying, hearty texture. Their wide surface area also gives space for the butter to cling to. For soup, I prefer to use a medium or fine egg noodle. They’re easier to scoop onto your spoon within the broth. If you go look at my Chicken Noodle Soup recipe here, you’ll see exactly what I mean.

What Are Egg Noodles?

Egg noodles are pasta like regular pasta but they contain a higher ratio of egg to flour than regular pasta does. In fact, a lot of regular pasta doesn’t contain eggs at all. The egg in egg noodles gives them a richer flavor and pale yellow color. I love serving egg noodles with my beef stroganoff and chicken paprikash recipes.

How Much Water to Use?

When cooking egg noodles, you generally need to use a lot of water. The reason you use a lot of water is so the temperature of the water stays very hot even after adding all the pasta. It also allows the noodles and water to circulate more which cooks the pasta more evenly.

The general rule of thumb is that 1 pound of pasta needs 4 quarts of water (which is 16 cups) . I typically eyeball that though by filling my 5.6 quart pot about 2/3 full or a bit more. And I’ll say that typically, if you have twice as much water as the uncooked volume of pasta, you should be fine. So, look at how full you think your empty pot would be if you put the pasta in it, and put twice that amount of water into the pot.

How Much Salt to Use?

This honestly comes down to preference and depends a bit on what you’re serving the noodles with. If you’re going to be dousing them in salted butter, you’d use less salt. If you’re tossing them with unsalted butter, you can use a bit more. If you’re putting a well-seasoned sauce on them, then you’d use less.

Having said that, the range of saltiness you should be going for is between 1/4 to 3/4 teaspoons per cup of water or 1 – 3 teaspoons per quart (which is also about a liter, which is about 4 cups). You’ll use the lesser amount if you want your noodles less salty, and the larger amount if you want them more seasoned and even slightly salty tasting.

So then if you’re cooking 1 pound of pasta and you’re using 4 quarts of water, as discussed above, you’ll use between 4 to 12 teaspoons of water. That’s a big range so I’ll tell you that I usually go with about 6-9 teaspoons, which is equivalent to 2-3 tablespoons.

How To Cook Egg Noodles

You’ll bring the salted water up to a boil (it’ll boil faster if you put a lid on the pot). Then carefully add the pasta. Stir it all for a good minute or two because the noodles are just starting to get moistened and can easily stick together at this point. Having a lot of water in there, and stirring, prevents sticking.

Once the water comes back up to a boil, reduce it to a simmer. This sometimes takes some jiggling to get the right temperature. You want the pot of water to just be bubbling a little bit. For my stove top, I drop the temperature down to low and then stir occasionally and wait to see what happens. If the water cools and stops bubbling completely, I increase the temperature to medium-low.

Stir the pot of simmering noodles occasionally (every minute or so) until the desired tenderness is reached (see below). Use the instructions on your pasta bag to determine the likely amount of time.

How Long To Cook Egg Noodles

I set my timer for the shortest time given. So if it says “simmer for 8-10 minutes,” once the pasta and water have come back to a boil and I have reduced the temperature to low, I set a timer for 8 minutes. Then I start checking the noodles.

Egg Noodle Cooking Time Chart

• Fine egg noodles (the thinnest ones) usually have a cooking time of 3-4 minutes after they have come to a boil.
• Medium egg noodles: 7-8 minutes.
• Extra-wide egg noodles: 9-11 minutes.
• Fresh (not dried) egg noodles: 1-2 minutes.

Once the noodles are at the desired tenderness (see below for testing), put a large colander into a clean sink. Pour the pasta and water into the colander.

You’ll be discarding the water by letting it run down the drain. But note that some recipes have you retain some of the water. To do that, use a measuring cup with a handle to go into the pot, before draining off the water, and scoop out the amount of water that you need. Set it aside until your recipe says to use it.

When recipes call for you to save some of the pasta water, it’s usually to add to the sauce. Pasta water is well-seasoned with salt and also has a bit of body (slight thickness) to it from the pasta boiling in it. If you have a sauce that is too thick, adding a bit of the pasta water thins it out with seasoned hot water.

Once you have drained the pasta, return it to the now empty pot. Note that I use a pot with a very heavy bottom. It retains heat incredibly well and that means that it can keep cooking things even when off of the heat. In the case of pasta, if I put the drained pasta back into the pot, the heat from the pot causes the pasta to stick badly to the bottom.

For that reason, before I put the pasta back into my pot, I rinse the bottom of the pot with a little bit of cool tap water. This cools the bottom of the pot enough that the pasta won’t stick to it, but since I only used a bit of water (approximately 1 cup), the pot stays warm, which will help to keep the pasta warm for a little while.

Once you have drained the pasta and returned it to the pot, you can proceed with your recipe.

How Do You Know When Pasta Is Cooked?

There are a lot of methods out there for figuring out when pasta is cooked. I’ve heard of people throwing noodles against the wall. If it sticks, it’s done? Maybe? I’ve honestly never tried it.

Instead, I just taste the pasta to see how it is.

So, once the pasta is simmering in the pot, I set a timer for the lowest time stated on the packaging. If it says 8-10 minutes, I set a timer for 8 minutes. When the timer goes off, I use a wooden spoon to try to fish out a noodle. Then I blow on it and then I taste it. If it’s the softness that I like, I drain the pot. If not, I let it go for another minute before testing it again.

One thing though, if you’re doing any kind of recipe where the pasta will be sitting in sauce for awhile, you might want to slightly undercook it. The still-warm pasta will soak up sauce and continue to soften.

If I’m making baked pasta or pasta salad, I’ll typically set the timer for 1 minute less (in the example above, 7 minutes) and then I’ll taste it. If it’s soft but slightly less soft than I like, I drain it then.

How To Make Buttered Noodles

Once you have your drained pasta in the pot, add butter that has been cut into small pieces, like ¼ inch chunks. Smaller pieces melt more quickly. Stir until it has melted all through the pasta.

Taste the noodles and decide if you want to add anything else. I usually add a bit more salt and some pepper. Chopped fresh parsley is nice too. I like flat leaf, Italian-style parsley more than the curly parsley that is often used for garnishes. You can also add a bit of garlic powder, if you’d like.

There you have it. Perfectly cooked, buttery noodles.

This post originally appeared in February 2020 and was revised and republished in October 2023.