Homemade Pasta Recipe

Nothing for nothing, but fresh pasta is so much better than the thick dry cardboard you get in a box. Even the ‘fancy’ stuff that costs $6 a pound is bland and grainy compared to pasta you make at home. And it’s really not that time consuming or difficult. Plus you get some quality time stretching dough. Make enough pasta and you’ll have Lou Ferrigno’s forearms.

About 30 minutes of active time and 15 minutes (up to a few hours) of waiting. And the ingredients are about the cheapest stuff you have in the house.

And it’s so simple to make it seems almost silly to create a recipe for it. If you mix flour and eggs together and knead them for a few minutes you have pasta. After that, you just have to roll and shape.

Okay, here’s the recipe. And some photos of us making pasta.

Ingredients

  • 8½ ounces 00 flour (about 2 cups). You can use regular flour but 00 flour makes a smoother pasta.
  • 2 whole large eggs
  • 2 egg yolks (or a tablespoon of olive oil)
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt

Preparation

  1. Mound flour in the center of a smooth clean surface. Be sure there is a good solid hill around the edge.
  2. Pour eggs and egg yolks in center of flour mound.
  3. Sprinkle salt over eggs.
  1. With a fork mix the eggs and yolks together.
  2. Continue mixing and slowly pulling in flour from the edges.

You will need to continue shoring up your flour well as you work. Try not to let the eggs escape. If they do it’s not a catastrophe. Just rebuild and keep mixing.

  1. Once enough flour is incorporated the pasta will begin to form a very soft dough.
  2. Abandon the fork and begin to incorporate flour using a bowl scraper if you have one. If you don’t have a bowl scraper your hands work fine – you’ll just be messier when this is over.

When the pasta holds together and is getting fairly firm, it’s time to scrape your board and get ready for kneading

  1. Move the pasta ball to one side and, using a bench scraper, scrape up and discard the messy bits stuck to the board.
  2. Spread a little more flour on your now-cleanish board.
  1. Knead the pasta dough for 15 minutes, incorporating only as much flour as needed to prevent sticking to the board. Seriously, look at the clock. Kneading for the full 15 minutes creates a stronger pasta. Stretchier. Betterer.
  2. As you knead the dough will transition from a bumpy lump of flour and egg into a smooth ball of dough and develop a light sheen.

 

  1. When the dough is very elastic and smooth, wrap tightly in plastic and rest on counter for 30 minutes to relax.

I have no idea how long it can rest on the counter, but I’ve rested pasta dough up to 3 hours at this point with no adverse effects.