Do you have a metal colander? Put the pasta in the colander and lower it into the water. Boil the pasta in the colander, and lift out when it’s done. Makes draining the pasta easy too.
I have two of those Fry Daddy things. One I use for deep frying, the other I use for boiling pasta and seafood. They’re about $30, and I don’t have to take up burner space on the stove.
I had a “Yankee swap”-type gift exchange this Christmas and the idea is to bring weird things that still might be useful, not junk. I pride myself on finding the best things. I ran across this item and knew it was just what I wanted.
The recipient was a lady in her 80s who had very minimal sight. When I explained the purpose of this thing to her and showed her how it worked, you would have thought I invented sliced bread. She told me she’d been burning herself throwing pasta in boiling water, and then had to worry about lifting pots of boiling water off the stove to pour it in the colander. Now she could throw this thing in the pot, lift it out with tongs, and let the water cool. It’s so soft and squishy! Everybody wanted to play with it!
Restaurants use pasta baskets; that’s just a nuevo-tech variation that might be better suited to both use and storage in a home kitchen.
The baskets are more for ease of removal of the cooked pasta. Many restaurants use pasta that is already softened and don’t encounter the particular problem described here. And real cooks don’t even notice a splash of boiling water. But if you have a basket you can put in your pot at home, that will solve it for you. Some pasta pots come with a removable colander that you can use for the same effect.
based on the stated difficulty putting boxed pasta into a pot of water, I would ask the OP to please turn in his or her driver’s license.
Try this, it’s how my 5 year old does it. Holding the closed bottom of the box, lay the open end of the box on the edge of the pot of water. Don’t press down on the edge of the pot, you might spill it (based on what I have read) Tilt the box until the pasta slides out. No splashing, no hand over the steam. Pull the box away from the pasta and the pot. have a grown up stir the pasta for you.
you could try sliding the pasta out of the box into your hand before putting it in the water, as your hand should be a much more familiar object to you than a small rectangular box.
Use a Pit Mitt, which is flexible, grippy, and you won’t get it wet with boiling water if you don’t stick your hand into the pot. But my suggestion was somewhat tongue in cheek. I prefer to either fish some out of the box and ease it into the pot, or use the box-on-lip method if emptying the box.
I honestly don’t care for any of the new silicone kitchen stuff, but I got your point.
The overall suggestion to dump it in my other hand and then drop it is good, but I seem to end up with spaghetti shards everwhere when I do that. I know some here think I am a total doofus, but I was hoping to find something simple that’s as easy and natural and mess-free for me as dumping from the cello packages is. I’ll try some of the suggestions here next time I have boxed blather.
Doesn’t matter if it’s broken before cooking or not - either way, I use the edge of my fork to cut it into bite-sized pieces.
Tweezers. Grab one stick at a time, place in pot. The best part is, by the time you get the last strand in, the first one will be done!
That’s just. . .wrong. 
She’s breaking it in half and you’re getting 2 inch pieces? Uncooked spaghetti is around ten or eleven inches long, isn’t it?
I do the box to hand, break in half, place in boiling pot method. I turn my hand as I put it into the water to fan out the strands.
True dat. Little burny splashes are such a common thing that I don’t even notice them any more.
When I cook long pasta at home, I tip it out of the box into a jar or coffee mug. That let’s me use my free hand to guide it without dealing with the heat of the pot. Plus, I do this while I’m waiting for the water to boil. Once the water is boiling it’s a simple matter to just grab the whole bundle of pasta with one hand and drop it in the water.
WTF?
Take a handful of whatever diameter you can break in half without needing safety goggles. Break it in half. Dump it in the pot. Repeat until you have enough. Twirl a fork through it so it doesn’t stick to itself. Pat yourself on the back, you’ve mastered the art.
Me too. I’m wondering if cerberus is kidding about using two pots.
See, I only had to boil my hand once to convince me of the virtue of the new silicone stuff.
I’m pretty sure not breaking spaghetti was the 13th commandment, on the tablet that Moses dropped.
I’ve been doing this approximately forever, without enduring splashes, burns, or having to deal with spaghetti wrapped in “cello” and having to “snip off ends”.
The only real spaghetti accident I ever sustained was a few years ago when I was retrieving a plastic container of sauce and meatballs from the microwave. It was boiling hot, steam was escaping from the lid and suddenly starting burning my hand, causing me to lose control of the container. Sauce and meatballs splattered everywhere, resulting in a mess and immense gratification for my Labrador retriever.
It never would have happened if I’d seen the right infomercial.
Am I the only person who breaks the box of spaghetti in half? I don’t mean that I take the spaghetti out of the box and break it - I open the box by folding it in half and then I pour the spaghetti from the box into the water. I do the folding over the trash can so any bits that break off fall in there.