How to Make Homemade Pasta

 This homemade pasta dough recipe is made from scratch by hand the Italian way with flour, eggs, olive oil, and salt. Fresh and easy.

Growing up Italian, we only had homemade pasta a few times a year, usually around the holidays. My dad had a fancy pasta machine and we would wake up the noise on Christmas morning. Fresh, homemade pasta was a treat and everyone looked forward to it.

This year, I decided to take over the pasta making duties for my own family’s Thanksgiving memories. I don’t have a the fancy machine but I do have a vintage pasta crank (passed down from my husband’s grandmother). There’s something so simple about forming a simple pasta dough and cranking it through the machine. And it’s a lot easier than you think!

How to Make Homemade Pasta

I am going to walk you through making homemade pasta but there’s a printable recipe below!

To make our homemade pasta, we’re using all-purpose flour and sea salt. You can also use semolina flour if you have it on hand. Mix the flour and sea salt together in a large bowl or on a flat surface.

In a separate bowl, beat 3 large eggs plus 2 egg yolks and olive oil. Create a well in the center of the flour, pushing the flour out to the side to make a 1-inch-wide ring. Make sure that the well is wide enough to hold all the eggs without spilling. Pour the beaten eggs and oil into the well.

Now it’s time to get your hands into it! Using your fingers begin turning the eggs in a circular motion, keeping them within the well and not allowing them to spill over the sides. Keep moving the eggs while slowly incorporating the flour. The mixture will thicken and eventually get too tight to keep turning with your fingers.

When the mixture begins thickening and starts forming a dough, bring the dough together with the palms of your hands and form into a ball. Take the dough out of the bowl and using a clean work surface, knead the dough for 10-15 minutes by pressing it, bit by bit, in a forward motion with the heels of your hands rather than folding it over on itself as you would with a bread dough.

The dough is ready when you can pull your finger through it and the dough wants to snap back into place. You cannot over knead this dough! Wrap the dough in plastic wrap to ensure that it does not dry out. Let the dough rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to an 1 hour before rolling it through a pasta machine.

Now you’re ready to feed the dough into your pasta machine. Dust the rollers with a little all-purpose or semolina flour so the pasta doesn’t stick. While dusting, spin the rollers to coat them with a very thin layer of flour.

Flatten the dough on the end you’ll be feeding into the pasta machine. The rollers will catch it and pull it through. Set the rollers to the largest setting (the 1 setting). Feed the dough through the machine, fold into thirds, and roll again.

Repeat this process, narrowing the roller settings as you go, until the dough is your desired thickness. I have found that I end up going up to the number 4 setting. The dough should be smooth, shiny, a little moist, and have no cracks or blemishes.

You are ready to start cutting noodles! To make a fettucine noodle, feed your dough through the fettucine noodle cutter on the pasta machine and dust it with flour while spinning the rollers. Feed one end of the pasta sheet into the rollers. Pass the entire sheet to go through the cutters, then dust the noodles lightly with flour or cornmeal so they don’t stick together. If you skip this step, you’ll end up with a blob of pasta.

At this point, you can either hang your pasta on the drying racks or throw it in a pot of hot boiling water. Remember, fresh pasta cooks fast! It only takes a few minutes in the water to cook.