For years I thought making a fresh homemade pasta dinner from scratch was entirely out of my league—then I actually looked into it. When I realized I’d need little more than all-purpose flour, a rolling pin, and a knife to whip up fresh pasta dough, the task suddenly went from totally out of the question to absolutely doable. Sure, you can splurge on imported flour and make perfect pasta shapes with elaborate tools and cutters. But I’m not opening an Italian restaurant any time soon, and I’m guessing you’re not either. And if you just want to make fresh pasta at home occasionally, you probably have everything you need in your kitchen right now. Let’s get into it:
How to make fresh pasta dough:
Chef Roberto Aita, owner of Italian Trattoria Aita in Brooklyn, says he learned to make fresh pasta using “nothing fancy” from his Calabrian farm-raised grandmother. “You can use the same simple techniques she did,” he says, “and get pretty amazing results.”
Cookbook author Hetty McKinnon feels similarly. “We make a lot of fresh pasta in my family,” she says. “I love that it’s so easy and doesn’t have to be perfect—in fact, it shouldn’t be. There’s beauty in imperfect things you can make by hand.”
Electric pasta makers—and even manual ones, to an extent—can take some of the muscle requirement out of making homemade pasta dough; just add the ingredients to the chamber and let the machine do the kneading for you. This can be a worthwhile shortcut for those lacking forearm strength or with dexterity issues. But according to McKinnon and Aita, making pasta dough without equipment is easier than you’d think and yields consistent results.
Once you learn what a proper pasta dough should feel like, bringing it together with your hands can even become more foolproof: “By touching it,” says Aita, “you can see and feel the amount of liquid that goes in, and stop adding water at exactly the right moment,” leading to a properly balanced mixture every time. This helps account for variables in your ingredients (like the brand of AP flour you use or the size of your eggs), which can make a dough looser or drier, even when following the same recipe. But if it’s your first time making fresh pasta dough, use the homemade pasta recipe below as your guide.
The flour: Some fresh pasta recipes call for specialty types of flour to replicate the flavor and chew of a restaurant-quality noodle; semolina flour and 00 flour are popular choices. But all-purpose flour—less expensive and easier to find in almost any grocery store—can be used to great success. Just be sure to use a recipe (like this egg pasta or this homemade pasta dough) that calls specifically for all-purpose,or offers it as a substitution. This way, you’ll ensure that the rest of the ingredients play nicely with the gluten level and consistency that your more versatile flour brings. You can also substitute bread flour for a chewier noodle.
The liquid: You can use whole eggs, egg yolks, water, oil, or a combination for the liquid component of your pasta dough. When using all-purpose flour specifically, Aita prefers recipes that incorporate olive oil, which keeps the dough silky and lubricated, and adds some richness to the finished product.
Regardless of the recipe, the process for making fresh pasta dough is the same: slowly stir liquid into your flour to hydrate as you mix. Some recipes achieve this in the bowl of a food processor or with the dough hook attachment of a stand mixer, but pasta dough is remarkably easy to make by hand. Here’s how:
Arrange your flour in a volcano shape—that is, a mound with a crater at the center—on a flat work surface or in a wide, shallow bowl. You’ll need about 100 grams of flour per 50 grams of liquid; use 400 grams of flour and 4 eggs (or 200 grams water) to make 4 servings of pasta.
Add the liquid ingredients to the crater and break the yolks of the eggs (if using) with the tines of a fork. Whisk the liquid slowly into the flour, working from the center outwards.
When the dough is too stiff to mix with a fork, use your hands to bring it all together.
Press the dough ball away from you with the heel of your dominant hand. Fold the pressed dough in half, turn it a quarter turn, and bring it back in front of you. Repeat pressing, folding, and turning until the dough is smooth and supple and springs back into shape when pressed—about 10 minutes of forceful kneading.
Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest for at least 45 minutes (up to 2 hours) at room temperature.
Congratulations—you’ve made fresh pasta dough! From here, the possibilities are endless—fettuccine, ravioli, lasagna, you name it. But first, it’s essential to let the dough rest. This is when the gluten in your dough hydrates, forming the bonds that make it beautifully elastic and easy to stretch and manipulate. If you want to work ahead, take a page from Aita’s book and make your pasta dough the day before you plan to use it. “I’ll leave it wrapped in the refrigerator overnight to rest,” he says. “I think the cold dough is easier to work with.”
How to roll fresh pasta:
You can use a pasta machine (or the pasta roller attachment on a stand mixer) to roll your dough into neat sheets. But you can achieve similarly great, if slightly more rustic, results using a rolling pin, no KitchenAid attachment or standalone tool required. “This rolling-by-hand-with-no-machine technique: that’s all they do in Emilia-Romagna,” says Aita, referencing the region in Northern Italy known for its peerlessly smooth pasta dough.
To roll pasta dough by hand: Cut dough into 8 equal pieces. Keep the dough you’re not working with covered with a damp dishtowel. Roll one piece of dough into a long sheet about 1/16" thick (or as thin as you can get it) using a rolling pin (or a wine bottle if you’re really roughing it. You should be able to see the color of your hand underneath through the dough.
To roll pasta dough by machine: Set your pasta roller to its widest setting. Cut dough into 8 equal pieces. Keep waiting dough covered and flatten one piece of dough into a disc. Slowly feed disc through pasta roller. Roll the dough twice through each setting,until you’ve reached the middle setting. Fold dough sheet in thirds, from end to end, like a letter. Feed folded dough through middle setting again—this step ensures a more even dough. Continue feeding dough twice through each setting until you’ve reached the smallest setting, or until the sheet is a scant 1/16" thick.
You can also skip the rolling pin and shape the dough entirely by hand. Follow our illustrated guides for handmade orecchiette, pici, and cavatelli for more.
How to cut fresh pasta:
If making ravioli or lasagna, leave the pasta sheets whole. Otherwise, you can cut the noodles into any shape you please. Keep in mind that they will swell a bit as they cook, so cut them a bit smaller than you’d like the noodles to be in your finished pasta.
To cut pasta dough by hand: Dust the pasta sheet well with all-purpose flour and fold in half, dust top-fold with flour and fold in half again. For fettuccine noodles, use a pasta cutter or a sharp knife to cut the dough into ½” strips. For pappardelle, cut the dough into 1” strips. Toss noodles with your hands to separate and unfold, using more flour as necessary to prevent sticking. Set aside, covered with plastic or a damp towel, and continue cutting remaining pasta dough. Be sure all the strands are the same thickness so they cook evenly.
To cut pasta dough by machine: Attach the desired cutter to your device and feed through the machine as directed. Toss the cut noodles with flour to prevent sticking. Set aside, covered in plastic, and continue cutting remaining dough pieces.
After cutting your pieces, cook your pasta immediately or toss it in a bit of flour to keep it from sticking, and set it on a plate or baking sheet to await cooking. (You can use a pasta drying rack if you’d like, but it’s not necessary.) Alternatively, keep it in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days or the freezer for up to one month.
How to cook fresh pasta:
Cook handmade pasta just like the store-bought stuff: in a large pot in well-salted boiling water. But remember that fresh pasta cooks faster than dried varieties—the cooking time typically falls between 1–3 minutes. Aita suggests keeping your eye on the pot: “Cook it until the pasta rises to the top, which will depend on how thick you roll and cut it,” he says. “I always say a little less time in the water is better, because it means more time cooking in the sauce.”
As for that sauce, you’ve got plenty of options. Make a simple butter sauce—with lots of freshly grated Parmesan—or opt for pesto or long-simmered marinara. No matter how you spin it, nothing quite beats fresh homemade pasta.
