Easy Homemade Pasta Recipe Recipe

Ingredients

Pasta Dough

• 2 cups 00 flour or all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 0.5 teaspoon sea salt
• water as needed

For Dusting

• rice flour for dusting (the best for not sticking) or use AP flour
• semolina flour (optional, for added texture and sturdiness)

Instructions

Making the Dough

1. Add the flour to a large bowl and create a well in the center for the eggs, olive oil and salt. Add the eggs, olive oil, and salt to the well in the middle and whisk with a fork until smooth-ish. Then, start mixing in the flour with the fork until it is mostly incorporated.
2. Use your fingers to incorporate the flour, pinching the flour into the dough until you have a craggy, cohesive ball. Add water a few teaspoons at a time as needed to incorporate all the flour. If it feels really sticky, add a little more flour. Place on a floured surface and rest for 10 minutes.
3. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic, roughly 5-7 minutes. Use the heel of your hand to press the dough down, away from you, onto the counter, then fold. Keep pressing and folding the dough, repeating until it is smooth and elastic. It will feel stiff at first, but it will relax.
4. Make a smooth ball, wrap, and rest for 20-30 minutes on the counter (or wrapped tightly overnight in the fridge).

Rolling the Pasta

1. Ready 2 extra-large sheet pans, lightly dusted with flour (rice flour works great here). Divide the dough into 4 pieces.
2. Working with one piece at a time (wrap the rest), flatten the dough into a long oval, not wider than your pasta maker. Roll on the thickest setting (2x), then fold the dough in half, and roll again on the thickest setting.
3. Fold the dough in thirds, flour and roll again (2x), and repeat until the dough is smooth and even-textured, and about the width of the pasta maker. Dust with flour as needed, and roll the dough at slightly thinner settings until it's about ¼ inch thick.
4. Lightly dust both sides, place on the sheet pan, fold over, cover with a kitchen towel, and let rest while you repeat the process with the three other pieces.
5. Once all 4 pieces are done and rolled to ¼ inch thick, and rested at least 10 minutes, it's time to roll them thinner. Starting with the most rested dough, run it through the pasta maker 2 times at each level, gradually thinning and sprinkling with flour as needed until you get it to the 1/16th-inch thick level.

Cutting and Storing

1. Trim the ends and cut the long sheets in half. Run each sheet through your pasta cutter, making sure to heavily dust with flour after, and coil around your hand, creating little nests on the dusted sheet pan. Cover. Alternatively, cut by hand.
2. Dust lightly with rice flour and store in nests in an airtight container until using, up to 3 days. Single or shallow layers are best here.

Notes

• Don't pull on the dough as it comes out of the pasta maker—just let it gently rest on the floured surface.
• The dough should be silky smooth and almost see-through when properly rolled.
• For added texture and sturdiness, you can substitute some of the 00 flour with semolina flour.
• Fresh pasta cooks much faster than dried—only 2-3 minutes in boiling salted water.