Print the recipe page!  homemade pasta four varieties

Easy peesie lemon squeezie!!  (as my five year old would say)  That’s how easy it is to make homemade pasta!  If you can make pie crust and knead bread dough then you can make homemade pasta.  While we usually have store bought pasta, I’ve found making it from scratch is another way to add variety and fun to my food storage plan!

I’ve learned to really appreciate this particular skill because  even though it’s made with the most basic of  ingredients it serves like something special, giving me a lot of bang for my ingredients/effort buck!  Even before it’s made,  the “ooh’s and ahh’s” start up when my kids hear what’s for dinner.  (Yes, it still happens!)  Every time I just laugh to myself because while it sounds fancy to them isn’t too hard on my end to make.   Today I’m sharing four varieties to get you started.  Give it a try!  You’ll impress your family and be surprised yourself of how easy it is to do.

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each recipe yields 4 servings

Ingredients:

Homemade Egg Noodles  (basic recipe)

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 eggs (4 TBS. water + 2 TBS whole egg powder)

2 TBS water

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp.oil

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Tomato Basil Pasta

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 TBS whole egg powder

2 tsp. dried basil

5-6 TBS tomato juice

2 tsp.oil

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Pizza Pasta

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 TBS whole egg powder

1 tsp. salt

3 tsp. pizza seasoning

5-6 TBS water

2 tsp. oil

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Old Bay Pasta (good with seafood)

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 TBS whole egg powder

1 tsp. salt

3 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning

5-6 TBS water

2 tsp. oil

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Tools needed:

Pasta Maker (this is the one I have)

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Instructions:

Sift egg powder into dry ingredients.  Whisk to combine.  Add wet ingredients and stir.  When it can be rolled into a ball, begin to knead as you would with bread for about 10 minutes.  Cover and let rest for 1 hour.

Working with half a dough ball at a time, flatten into a disk and feed through a pasta maker beginning on gauge 1 and continuing until fairly thin (gauge 6).  If drying for use later, hang on a drying rack.  If using immediately the pasta can be pressed, cut and laid onto a cookie sheet before cooking in boiling salted water.  Homemade pasta cooks faster than store bought pasta, 3 to 5 minutes at most.  Drain well and serve immediately.

To freeze:  After hanging pasta to dry for one hour, carefully place in freezer bags and freeze.  When ready to use, don’t thaw, just drop the frozen pasta into boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.

To store dried:  After hanging and drying completely, the pasta can be stored for several months in an airtight bag or container.   Drying times will depend on the size of your pasta as well as humidity.  When cooking it after it’s been dried, it will take longer to cook, 7-9 minutes.  *Pasta should not be dried and stored in this way if making with raw eggs.

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Mixing the dry ingredients and adding the liquids.

 

Knead for 10 minutes.  No cheating — 10 minutes.

And this is what you get (FYI, this is the Tomato Basil Pasta recipe)…

I think it’s so fun that you can turn something all shaggy and flour-ey into something almost like playdough just for kneading it!

Cover and allow to rest for 1 hour.

When ready to press, work with half a round at a time, beginning by flattening the dough with your hands into a disk to feed it into your pasta maker set at the thickest setting.  Sometimes the dough will rip in the beginning.  If it does this, just fold it onto itself and repeat the attempt, pressing it until it comes together.  Depending on the moistness of the dough, many times you have to do this 3-4 times before it cooperates.

Press the dough beginning at level 1 and continue pressing to level 6.  As soon as the dough gets too long to handle (at about level 5), cut the pressed dough in half to finish the final pressing.

Once thin enough, use the pasta maker’s cutting attachment to cut the noodles.

If they’re going to be eaten right away, I don’t worry about hanging them.  They wait on a cookie sheet until it’s time to cook.

Cook in boiling salted water for about 3 minutes.  Drain and be prepared to serve immediately.

Serve topped with warmed marinara or alfredo sauce and grated parmesan cheese.

Extra for later…

Freezing partially dried pasta makes it convenient for nights when I don’t have time to cook.  I could dry it completely and store it that way too, but so long as I have a freezer I like just drying it for an hour and bagging it up to freeze.  When it’s time to cook, it goes right into the boiling water without being thawed.

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Notes:

• The homemade egg noodle recipe is also the one I’ve used for making ravioli.  It’s also a great recipe to add to chicken noodle soup!
• To make any of these pasta recipes w/fresh eggs, omit the egg powder and decrease the overall liquid by 4 TBS.
• With the tomato basil recipe I always make two batches when I make it to use the full 5.5 oz can of tomato juice.  It works out just perfect!
• If I don’t have anyone around to help me to cut the pasta, I have a trick to doing  it on my own with just two hands.  Feed the pasta into the cutting attachment by just a few inches.  Place the rest of the pasta over top of a large lightweight plastic cup.  The cup will turn by itself when the crank is turned, feeding the pasta into the cutter while allowing a free hand to catch the pasta on the other side.
• Since the cut noodles are fairly long, it’s important to figure out ahead of time where to hang them to dry. To allow extra height, I’ve found it works well to place the drying rack over the top of a large pot.