How to Make Homemade Pasta

Recipe by  Chef Austin 

 

Making fresh pasta can be confusing. There are so many recipes out there with various techniques and ingredients. Everything Kitchens is here to make pasta easy for anyone to make. You probably already have the tools and ingredients in your kitchen to make scratch-made pasta. If you have eggs, flour, and a Kitchenaid mixer, you’re already halfway there.

 

Kitchenaid makes it easy

From mixing to kneading, to cutting, your Kitchenaid mixer can make every step of pasta making fast and convenient. Kitchenaid offers Italian made, high-quality pasta roller attachments.

You can run your pasta sheets through one of the many cutter attachments to make fettuccini, spaghetti, capellini, lasagnette or run the dough through the bucatini, rigatoni, fusilli, or macaroni press. There is even a ravioli maker attachment to make stuffed pasta shells. With Kitchenaid, you can stock up your pantry with hand made pasta to enjoy whenever you want.

Why Make Fresh

It’s so nice to know what is going into your food, that’s why we love cooking from scratch. You can choose all the ingredients and can pronounce them too. This lets you control the flavor of your food and puts your mind rest knowing there are safe, fresh ingredients in what you are cooking.

Chef Tips: Importance of Ingredients

• As a chef, when choosing ingredients, I have learned fresh is best. I always try to support my local farmer first, farm eggs and fresh herbs are something you can easily grab at the farmers market. When you shop local, you get the freshest and most flavorful food and you support those families who work hard to grow that food.

• Flour: The best quality pasta we believe is made from 00 flour, sometimes called “double O flour”. 00 flour has is a very fine grind and has a smaller amount of the bran (if any) from the whole grain used compared to other types of flour. This makes for a more silky texture pasta, very delicate, soft to the bite. All-purpose flour can be used to substitute, it will produce a quality pasta with a stronger texture with a bit more chew.

Chef Tips: Importance of Measurements

• When baking and dealing with flour-based foods, the kitchen scale is king. Measuring ingredients by weight ensures consistency every time you make a recipe. There can be variables when measuring by volume (with cups and tablespoons) where your flour or sugars could be more compact together or too loosened giving you too much or too little of an ingredient. Instances like these can cause a recipe to fail where weight measurements take out the guesswork.

Becoming comfortable with a base pasta dough recipe can open the door to more extravagant types. Impress your family and friends with herb-infused pasta or vibrantly dark squid ink pasta. Making pasta at home is a relaxing and rewarding experience. Enjoy restaurant-quality food with ingredients you trust.

 

 

 

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Home Made Pasta

Ingredients

• 9oz "00" Pasta Flour (by weight) **see notes**
• 6oz Whole Eggs by weight (or about 3 whole large eggs plus one yolk)

Special Equipment Needed

• KitchenAid Stand Mixer
• KitchenAid Pasta Roller Set
• Dough Cutter
• Digital Kitchen Scale
• Pasta Drying Rack (optional)

Directions  

Step 1
Place flour and eggs into Kitchenaid mixing bowl. Attach the mixing paddle and mix on speed 1 to combine ingredients for 30 seconds. Turn mixer to speed 2 to really incorporate ingredients; mix for around 1-2 minutes. A crumbly dough should form, if it looks dry add a small splash of water at a time and mix.

Step 2
Change the paddle attachment to the kneading hook. Knead dough on speed 1 for one minute, if it looks dry and crumbly, add a small splash of water and continue to mix. The dough should be starting to make a cohesive ball, when you see this, then crank up to speed 2 and knead for one more minute. Take out of mixer and knead on a floured surface for 1-2 minutes. Wrap in plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes in refrigerator.

Step 3
Take rested dough and cut in quarters and flatten down with your hand to work in portions. Make sure to flour your work surface so the dough doesn't stick. Set up Kitchenaid pasta roller according to manufacturer’s instructions and set to largest setting of 1. Set speed to 1 on mixer and run the dough through the rollers. Repeat this process 12-14 times, folding dough over itself both horizontally and vertically alternatively each run through and making sure the dough is lightly floured each time before running through. This process is kneading the dough. 

Step 4
Dial down the pasta roller to the 2 setting. Run the dough through this setting 2-3 times. Dial down to 3 and roll dough through once. Continue this process and roll dough through once on settings 4,5,6,7, and 8.

Step 5
Now at this point, you can change out the pasta roller for a pasta cutter. Choose the type of noodle you would like and run your rolled pasta sheet through. You can cut the noodles down to a length you desire. Hang cut noodles on a pasta drying rack. What you do not cook, you can leave on the drying rack for 12-24 hours to dry and store.

 

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About the Author:  Chef Austin Merath is Everything Kitchen's Culinary Wizard, Kitchen-Gadget Reviewer, and New-Product Tester. He studied under chefs in College of the Ozarks' Culinary Program. It's his job to make sure you choose the kitchen tools that are right for you by testing the best we have to offer. When not cooking, Austin is tinkering with computers or exploring the Ozarks with his wife Amy. Click here for his full bio.