You can make homemade pasta without a pasta machine! Our step-by-step Homemade Pasta Recipe is a game plan for enjoying your favorite pasta recipes using fresh pasta. Don’t forget the pasta sauce!
In this recipe
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Prepare homemade noodles
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Pasta on your schedule
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Tips for Success
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Types of homemade pasta
I’ve been making pasta from scratch for about eight years now, often with a kid standing by each hip and stuff without a pasta machine.
Sometimes gadgets can be obstacles to experiments in the kitchen. But a small kitchen or lack of funding shouldn’t stop anyone from preparing delicious home-cooked food. I find that most meals can be prepared with just a few simple tools that serve multiple purposes.
With my homemade pasta, my rolling pin doubles as a rolling pin.
Video: How to make homemade pasta
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SKC – Homemade Noodles
Also visit YouTube to see our Editor-in-Chief Summer Miller making this recipe with her kids as part of our Simply Kids Cook YouTube series!
How to make homemade pasta
When making pasta by hand, you use a rolling pin to mimic the way a pasta machine works: Roll out a small piece of dough until it is paper-thin. Then, using a knife, cut them into individual noodles.
It takes a little more muscle and patience, but you can absolutely make the noodles as thin as you would with a machine.
Homemade pasta on your schedule
Making pasta from scratch takes time, but don’t let that stop you from making pasta at home. The dough can be made in one day and either refrigerated overnight or frozen so you can cut and shape your pasta another day.
However, do not refrigerate pasta dough for more than a day. Otherwise the dough will discolour. If you don’t want to cook your pasta the next day, freeze it.
- To freeze a ball of pasta dough, Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Then place it in a ziplock bag that will have the air squeezed out (no oil needed). The morning you want to make the pasta, simply pop it out of the freezer onto your countertop. It will be ready for you to roll out and cut later in the afternoon.
- You can also freeze the sliced pasta. When I make homemade pasta, I always make a big batch and freeze the extra pasta for those moments when life calls for more carbs. Even straight from the freezer, homemade pasta cooks faster than store-bought dried pasta, making it great for quick weeknight meals.
Tips for making homemade pasa
- If the eggs break through your flour while mixing, don’t panic. Just push some extra flour against the pierce with your hand and keep mixing. A bench scraper is also very useful here as you can use it to pick up a lot of dirt quickly. If you have one, keep it handy.
- It’s important to rest the dough before rolling it out: This allows the gluten in the dough to relax, making it easier to roll out. There’s a huge difference when you roll out pasta by hand than when you use a machine.
- If your pasta is sticky anywhere, add more flour, a teaspoon at a time. When rolling out, make sure to dust your worktop with flour at regular intervals. It’s also important to dust the rolled out pasta thoroughly with flour before folding or rolling the dough to cut into the desired shape.
- If the dough “snaps back” when you roll it out: Pause and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes (to give the gluten a chance to relax). Then try rolling it again.
- Cooking Frozen Noodles: Use frozen pasta straight from the freezer without thawing it. Don’t let them thaw on the counter while you’re preparing the rest of your meal. Sometimes condensation or ice crystals form in the bag. This will steam your pasta and cause it to stick together as it thaws.
What do you do with homemade pasta?
The same recipe and rolling technique can be used to make thin linguini pasta, lasagna pasta, ravioli, tortellini, and every shape of pasta in between.
Pair this pasta with your favorite sauce for a quick and easy weeknight dinner, or add it to your favorite homemade chicken noodle soup recipe.
Sauces to serve with homemade pasta
- simple tomato sauce
- Bolognese meat sauce
- Make-Ahead Alfredo Sauce
- Fresh basil pesto
- mushroom sugo
How to Make Homemade Pasta (Without a Pasta Machine!)
Extra Fast Noodles: If you’re pressed for time, roll out the pasta as instructed in step 4. Then cut them into strips with a pizza cutter. You can cut lengthwise or crosswise or even diagonally, whichever you prefer. This makes a more rustic pasta dish – but just as delicious.
ingredients
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2 3/4 cups (350G) all purpose flour, plus more for dusting and rolling
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4 big eggs
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1 egg egg yolk
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3 teaspoon olive oil
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1/2 teaspoon Salt
method
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Mix dough:
Heap the flour in a heap on the countertop. Create a large well or crater in the center big enough to contain the eggs and olive oil like a bowl. Place the eggs, egg yolk, olive oil and salt in the well. Whisk together the eggs and oil with a fork.
Continue beating the eggs, but begin to pull in bits of flour from the hollow. Use a stirring motion and work slowly to avoid breaking eggs through the bowl of flour. (If the eggs break through your flour while mixing, don’t panic. Just press some extra flour against the breakthrough with your hand or with a bench scraper and keep mixing).
Continue until the dough starts to come together and the eggs are incorporated. The dough will be wet and lumpy in some places and fluffy in others. And the mixture will still be quite floury. That’s okay. Use your hands or a bench scraper to continue assembling the dough. I scoop up the wet and crumbled dough with my bench scraper and cut it into the rest of the dough.
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Knead the dough:
If the dough looks relatively cohesive but is still a bit crumbly, shape it into a ball and knead it on the counter for 10 minutes. The dough will be rough at first, but it should firm up and smooth out as you continue kneading.
If the dough sticks to your hands, dust the countertop with a little more flour. If the dough is too stiff, add a teaspoon of water. Add more water or flour, teaspoon by teaspoon, until you get the right texture.
You should end up with a soft, elastic dough that isn’t sticky and feels smooth like a baby’s bottom.
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Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest on your counter for an hour:
After an hour, move on to the next step, refrigerate the dough for the next day (no more than 24 hours) or freeze the dough.
(Freeze, Wrap the pasta dough ball tightly in plastic wrap. Then place it in a ziplock bag that will have the air squeezed out. No oil needed.)
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Roll out pasta:
When the dough has finished resting, form it into a fat stick and cut into 5 or 6 equal parts. Leave out one section and rewrap the others. (If you’re working on a small counter, you can cut each piece in half again so you’re working with less dough.)
Lightly flour your work surface and use your rolling pin to roll out the dough into a long strip. With each pass, lift the dough, dusting the counter underneath again and turning it over. When you’re done, you should have a long, thin piece of dough. It should be about wafer-thin, but strong enough to lift off the countertop.
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Loosely fold the strip of pasta like an accordion:
Dust the strip of dough with more flour. Beginning with the short end, fold loosely like an accordion. (An accordion fold, like the one pictured here, is better at preventing the dough from sticking to itself than rolling it up like a cigar.)
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Cut the stack into strips:
Use a very sharp knife to slice the stack into thin strips across the creases. You can cut the strips as thin or thick as you like (like thin linguini or like wide fettuccine). But try to be consistent with the width. Otherwise, the noodles will cook at different rates.
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Dry pasta:
Unroll the noodle bundle and place it over your dining table, kitchen island or the back of a chair. Let them dry for about 15 minutes.
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Repeat with the rest of the dough:
Continue rolling and cutting the rest of the pasta until you’ve worked through all of the dough.
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Use or freeze pasta:
At this point, the noodles are still pliable but dry. They can be used immediately or frozen for later.
When they freeze, collect the noodles in several small, loose bundles. Be careful not to compress the noodles too much; it’s okay to just collect them together. Place the pasta nests on a well-floured baking sheet and then freeze. Once frozen, place the nests in a large ziplock bag and use as needed. Frozen pasta has a shelf life of 9 months.
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Cook pasta:
Bring a pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add the fresh or frozen pasta and cook until chewy and al dente (taste one of the pastas to check), 4 to 5 minutes. Serve with your favorite sauce.
| nutritional information (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 226 | calories |
| 6g | Fat |
| 34g | carbohydrates |
| 9g | protein |
