Learn How to make Homemade Pasta for the best-tasting homemade Italian meals and other pasta recipes. You only need six ingredients and 45 minutes to make this fresh pasta dough and it stores well too!
Pasta made from scratch has the most amazing flavor and texture. It’s far more enjoyable and delicious than dried store-bought pasta. When combined with a huge variety of ingredients and sauces, the pasta variations such as spaghetti, tagliatelle, and penne (just to name a few) create new mouth-watering dishes like Jalapeño Popper Chicken Casserole, Pesto Pasta Salad, and Easy Weeknight Sour Cream Noodle Bake.
Learning how to make homemade pasta is incredibly rewarding which is why I recommend you also try making other recipe ingredients from scratch, like Homemade Gnocchi, Marinara Sauce, Homemade Croutons with Garlic Butter Seasoning, or Garlic Butter Sauce.
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Why You’ll Love Homemade Pasta
- It’s a recipe that only requires six pantry-staple ingredients and less than an hour of your time!
- You can make a variety of fresh pasta types just by shaping the pasta dough differently.
- The flavor and texture of your own pasta beats store-bought pasta any day!
🍝 Ingredients:
- Eggs – Allow the eggs to reach room temperature for easy mixing with the other ingredients. (you’ll juse both the whites and egg yolks)
- Flour – Types of Flour – I’ve used cake flour and all-purpose flour to make this homemade pasta as well as semolina flour (or rice flour) for dusting.
- Olive oil – Always use high-quality olive oil when making homemade pasta.
- Salt – I’ve used fine sea salt.
For a full list of ingredients and their measurements, 📋 please view my printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Special Equipment Needed:
- Pasta Roller
Substitutions and Variations
- Make vegan homemade pasta omitting the eggs and using water instead. The flour, olive oil, and salt remain the same.
- If you prefer whole wheat flour, then most certainly use whole wheat flour together with the all-purpose flour and eggs.
- Shape your homemade pasta into long thin strips or create bow-ties and other short pasta shapes, any pasta cutter shape you have.
- Roll out and shape your pasta either by rolling pin and hand or by the use of a pasta machine.
🔪 Instructions:
Step 1: Create a mound of flour on a clean kitchen work surface and a well in the center of the flour. Place the egg yolk and oil in the well.
Step 2: Start to whisk the egg mixture into the flour with a fork, using your hands to incorporate the rest of the flour.
PRO TIP: Homemade pasta requires room temperature ingredients and surfaces to be worked on. Don’t forget to allow the eggs to reach room temperature, and use a wooden kitchen board to work your pasta dough on or to let it rest on instead of cold marble countertops.
Step 3: Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it’s soft and malleable. Roll the dough into a ball.
Step 4: Wrap the dough ball with plastic to rest for 30 minutes.
Step 5: Boil a pot of water with salt if you intend to cook your homemade pasta immediately after assembly. Cut the rested pasta dough into four equal sections, taking one section and covering the rest so that they don’t dry out.
Step 6: With one piece of dough, feed it through the pasta machine on the widest setting, decreasing the setting as you continue to run the same strip of dough through it until the dough becomes thin.
Step 7: You may need to fold the ends of the dough to keep the pasta strip a rectangular shape while feeding through the pasta maker. Repeat this process with all four sections of the resting dough. Once you have your thin sections complete, start to feed each one through the pasta machine using a fettuccine attachment.
Step 8: Repeat this process with the rest of the dough sections, maintaining a lightly floured surface on a baking sheet.
Step 9: Once the pasta is made, cook it immediately in boiling salted water for 2-3 minutes.
Step 8: Hang it to dry on a dough hook or pasta rack to store and use later.
GARNISH/SLICE/SERVE: Serve this immediately for best results. Enjoy with a simple drizzle of olive oil, parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper!
Recipe Tips for How to Make Homemade Pasta Dough
- Using a wooden drying rackis a very easy and convenient way to hang out your pasta. Alternatively, twist your pasta strips into small nest shapes and dry them on a floured surface. Leave them uncovered for about 24 hours. You know when they are dry pasta when they make a crisp snapping sound upon test breaking them.
- If you live in a very humid climate, it’s going to be normal for your pasta to take longer to dry.
- Never use self-raising flour when making pasta. The raising agent in the flour will affect the outcome of your cooked noodles!
Fun Fact
Did you know that it is said that Marco Polo brought the concept of pasta back to Italy in the 13th century? Historians can also trace pasta back to the 4th-century Etruscans. What does this teach us? It’s great food!
Forming the Pasta by Hand
If you don’t have a pasta machine, roll a section of the pasta dough using a rolling pin until you achieve a thin rectangular shape. Use a pizza cutter or sharp knife to cut pasta dough into thinner fettuccine strips and repeat this process with the other sections of pasta dough, maintaining a lightly floured surface.
Recipe FAQs
This homemade pasta (whether raw or cooked) can be wrapped in plastic wrap or stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.
Sprinkle olive oil lightly over your pasta strips and they will not stick together when stored in the refrigerator.
Yes! By resting your pasta dough you are allowing moisture to be absorbed by the flour and it will be less sticky when working with it.
The other important reason for resting your homemade pasta is that it allows the gluten in the flour to relax the dough and that in turn makes it easier to stretch the dough when rolling it into your desired thickness.
Your pasta will be soft and float to the top of the water once cooked. Of course, you can also opt to cook your pasta al dente which is what I enjoy most, especially when I plan to add my pasta to other saucy ingredients with additional simmering time.
Ways to Use Homemade Pasta
If you tried this How to Make Homemade Pasta Recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how you liked it in the 📝 comments below.
How to Make Homemade Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup cake flour
- 3 large eggs room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- Semolina and/or rice flour for dusting
Instructions
- Place your flour (or combination of flours) on a clean work surface, forming a pile.
- Form a well in the center of the pile and add the eggs and olive oil.
- Begin whisking the eggs, gradually incorporating the flour as you whisk until you’ve combined as much of the flour as you can. Mix in any remaining flour with your hands until it is fully incorporated.
- Continue working the dough with your hands, kneading for a full 10 minutes, until the dough becomes soft and malleable.
- Pat the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Set the dough to rest for 30 minutes.
- If you are cooking the pasta right away, fill a large pot with water and a tablespoon of salt. Bring the water to a boil while you are forming the pasta.
- Divide the dough into 4 sections, working with one section at a time and keeping the remaining sections covered so they don’t dry out.
- Use a rolling pin or a pasta machine to roll the section of dough very thin. In a pasta machine, begin with the widest setting and run the dough through the machine over and over, decreasing the setting on the machine until it is rolled very thin. If the dough becomes misshapen (it will), fold in the more tapered ends to keep your pasta as close to rectangular as you can while rolling it out.
- Use a pizza wheel or a fettuccine (or desired) attachment on a pasta machine to cut the dough into strips.
- Dust the pasta machine or your work surface well with rice flour to reduce any sticking.
- Cook the pasta in the boiling water immediately (fresh pasta only needs 2-3 minutes to cook).
- Alternately, hang the pasta to dry on a pasta rack.
- Pasta will dry in 1-2 days and can then be stored in an airtight container up to 3 days. You can also freeze the pasta for 3 months.
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Notes
- Using a wooden drying rack is a very easy and convenient way to hang out your pasta. Alternatively, twist your pasta strips into small nest shapes and dry them on a floured surface. Leave them uncovered for about 24 hours. You know they are dry when they make a crisp snapping sound upon test breaking them.
- If you live in a very humid climate, it’s going to be normal for your pasta to take longer to dry.
- Never use self-raising flour when making pasta. The raising agent in the flour will affect the outcome of your cooked noodles!
Nutrition
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