A novel approach is proposed to study the influence of drying temperatures on the quality characteristics of spaghetti made of a mixture of semolina and wheat flour during cooking and overcooking. Spaghetti were dried at three different temperatures (low, medium and high) and submitted to sensorial analysis in order to evaluate adhesiveness, bulkiness and firmness at the optimum cooking time (8 min). Water sorption tests were run at 100 degrees C and the changes in weight, diameter, and length of spaghetti strands were monitored for 20 min. In addition, stickiness, elastic modulus and loss of amylose were measured. The sensorial characteristics were then correlated with the results of chemical and physical analyses. Mathematical equations were proposed to determine the differences in the instrumental determinations among the three types of spaghetti investigated in this work. Results pointed out that spaghetti dried at high temperature have the highest firmness and the lowest stickiness. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.