Inside the Kitchen: How Paso Schools Serves 3,500 Servings of Local Etto Pasta
What does it take to cook pasta for thousands of students—and make sure it still tastes good by the time it reaches the lunch line?
A very large pot helps.
Etto Pasta founder Brian Terrizzi recently visited the PRJUSD central kitchen to see how Paso Schools Food Services prepares Etto’s locally made pasta on a scale most home cooks—and even mast restaurants—never have to consider. We’re talking 60-pound batches, cooked in industrial equipment, rapidly cooled, transported to school sites, and reheated the following day to just the right temperature and texture.
PRJUSD has served Etto pasta in our schools for the past five years as part of our ongoing commitment to incorporating fresh, locally sourced produce and products into student meals. For Jessie Wesch, PRJUSD Director of Food Services, choosing a local product is only the beginning. It also has to work within the realities of large-scale school food service. “What I love about your pasta is that it holds up the texture,” Wesch told Terrizzi during his visit. “It adheres to the sauce very well. The students love it, which is a big plus.”
Over time, Wesch, Chef Mike, and the Food Services team have honed the process through plenty of trial and error.
Once the pasta is cooked, speed matters. Rather than letting it sit in hot water while staff scoop and drain it, the team uses equipment that allows the pasta to drain quickly before moving it directly into an ice bath. That stops the cooking process and helps prevent the noodles from becoming overcooked or gummy when they are reheated the next day. Then comes one more local touch: a light coating of Halter Ranch olive oil to keep the pasta from clumping.
The result is a carefully coordinated process that turns a local product into thousands of school meals—and gives a glimpse into just how much planning, technique and ingenuity happens behind the scenes in a school kitchen.
At one point during the visit, Terrizzi looked around at the scale of the operation and joked that PRJUSD might be cooking more pasta than all the restaurants in Paso Robles combined. (We’re not confirming that. But we’re also not ruling it out.)