"But who's to say that these two phases, water absorption and protein denaturing, have to occur at the same time? H. Alexander Talbot and Aki Kamozawa of the fantastic blog Ideas in Food asked themselves that very question, and what they found was this: You don't have to complete both processes simultaneously. In fact, if you leave uncooked pasta in lukewarm water for long enough, it'l absorb just as much water as boiled pasta."
This is how I lasagna. Warm water soak to rehydrate (I do use my kettle to speed things up).
I realize baked ziti (your link) and lasagna are basically the same thing, but it felt worth calling out. It makes for a much faster prep stage. I do the prep work after my family leaves for the day in the morning, then dinner is just preheating and popping it in the oven
Sounds like a way to trade preparation time for energy expenditure, if it lets you minimize the amount of water you need to boil.
You'll probably need some extra water just to ensure even heating, but if the pasta is already rehydrated, then you no longer have to include a safety margin for water to be absorbed.
Ah ok I missed that your link was for ziti. I thought you were talking about spaghetti or other non-baked pastas where you typically just pour sauce over.
Or skip the boiling completely: https://www.seriouseats.com/food-lab-no-boil-baked-ziti-reci...
"But who's to say that these two phases, water absorption and protein denaturing, have to occur at the same time? H. Alexander Talbot and Aki Kamozawa of the fantastic blog Ideas in Food asked themselves that very question, and what they found was this: You don't have to complete both processes simultaneously. In fact, if you leave uncooked pasta in lukewarm water for long enough, it'l absorb just as much water as boiled pasta."