If you’ve never made fresh pasta dough before, I guarantee you’ll be amazed at how simple it really is. I love to whip up a small batch – just for two – for a random Wednesday dinner. Compared to pre-packaged pasta, fresh is unbeatable in flavor and texture. In this tutorial I’ll be walking you through my own basic egg dough - from scratch to serve. With just a few common ingredients, you’ll be a pastaio in no time (pastaio = Italian for a person who makes pasta).
Tools
Very little is required to make fresh dough. Some people use a food processor, but I prefer a more traditional method. You don’t need anything except a counter top and a fork.
Forming pasta into fun shapes uses a variety of tools, some are specialty items while others are readily found in any kitchen. I’ll be covering an assortment of tools and how to make various shapes in a future article. For now, a basic kitchen knife is a great place to start. A rolling pin is also useful and a lot less work than trying to flatten dough by hand.
Recipe
When I was first learning to make pasta I read countless websites and books searching for an easy basic recipe. What I found was that everybody has their own variation, often passed down through families, with differing distributions of the same basic ingredients. After trying many of these, I developed my own standardized recipe and it works beautifully every time. This recipe makes two servings (at approximately 265 calories each); feel free to multiply it for larger batches.
Without further ado, let’s gather our ingredients!
1 level cup all-purpose flour*
1 chicken egg
1-2 tablespoons water**
¼ teaspoon salt
This is the most basic dough, but there’s a lot of adventurous colors and flavors that can be added, and I’m looking forward sharing my experiments with you in an upcoming article.
*Note on flour: Sometimes I make a version with half whole wheat flour and half AP flour. It’s higher in fiber and nutrients, a little more dense when cooked, and holds its shape great. However, whole-wheat flour requires extra moisture, so be sure to add an extra tablespoon of water.
**Note on water: Start with just 1 tbsp water. If the dough feels too dry, you can add a little more water, one teaspoon at a time, but you don’t want it too wet. Very slightly dry is okay because during the rest phase, as the flour integrates the moisture, it usually comes together just fine. With practice, you’ll get to know what a good dough feels like.
Making Dough
Here comes the fun part…
1) Pile the flour on a clean counter surface. That’s right, directly on the counter. And create a hollow in the center.
2) In the hollow, crack the egg, and add the water and salt.
3) With a fork, gently start scrambling the egg.
4) Then, slowly work in the flour without breaching the wall barrier, so the liquid doesn’t flow out.
5) As the mixture starts thickening, set aside the fork and use your hands to work the remaining flour in.
6) At this point you should have a rough dough. Knead for 1-2 minutes so all ingredients are well blended.
7) Now we have to let the dough rest so gluten bonds can form. Many people use plastic wrap for this part, but I can’t justify single-use plastic products. Instead, place your dough ball in a bowl and drape a moist cloth over the top to keep your dough from drying out. Wait 30-60 minutes.
8) Lightly flour your counter, place the dough on the surface, and knead for another 1-2 minutes.
Viola! You just made your first pasta dough. Easy, huh?
Basic Noodles
Like I mentioned, today we’re just going to use a knife to make some simple noodles. Hand cutting noodles gives you a lot of control over how wide the noodles are – from linguine to angel hair.
On a lightly floured surface, start rolling your dough flat. How flat you roll it out depends on your preferences. Sometimes I like very wide but ultra thin noodles, other times I want spaghetti that’s more square. It’s up to you.
In addition to thickness, you also get to decide how long your noodles should be. In soups, I prefer wide noodles 2-3 inches long, but if I’m making an angel hair pasta, 10-12 inches is where it’s at.
When your dough is rolled out to the desired thickness, either fold the sheet over representing the length of the noodle, or cut the sheet to match the right length and stack them. The exception here is for short ones (like my soup noodles). In this case, consider the length of several noodles that can be cut to size.
Tip: lightly flour the dough in between the layers so they don’t stick together.
With the sheet folded, start at one edge and cut strips as wide or narrow as you’d like. Try to make them uniform so they cook evenly (unlike my demo pics).
Notice: In these pictures, my dough is a bit rough along the edges. The reason for this is because I didn’t let my dough rest long enough (step 7 above) during the photo shoot. If I had, it would have rolled out a little easier and the edges would be a bit smoother. But, it still worked out in the end.
Once your strips are cut, it’s time to set those noodles free. Use your hands to gently loosen the noodles and make sure there aren't any sticking together.
Cook & Serve
Fresh pasta is super quick to cook. Bring a medium pot of water to boil over high heat. A big pinch of salt in the water enhances pasta flavors. Sometimes I add a tablespoon of olive oil to keep the noodles separated if I'm making a big batch, but it’s not really necessary.
More options: Water isn’t the only thing you can boil your pasta in. Different liquids will add different flavors. My favorites are vegetable / chicken stock or whey (a bi-product of cheese making).
Once the liquid is a rolling boil, drop in the noodles. Within a couple of minutes the noodles will start floating to the surface. After they’re all floating, it’s time to pull them out. If your noodles are very thick, give them another minute in the boiling water. I use a spider strainer or a skimming ladle to remove the noodles.
Don’t dump that pasta water! I use it in lots of recipes that call for just water, including soup bases, risotto, and bread dough. Pasta water even makes a great substitute for cooking oil in certain recipes, like pan-fried veggies.
Rich pesto, creamy alfredo, or spicy marinara – there are so many sauce options. To use these demo noodles, I made a sauce from sundried tomatoes in oil (drained and chopped), a couple tablespoons chili oil sediment, black olives, and feta cheese. So yum!
Share! I’d love to hear how your first pasta dough turned out, or even what kind of sauce you use, in the comments below.
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