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How to make pasta dough

With just one simple pasta dough recipe, the pasta possibilities are endless.

By The Good Housekeeping Cookery TeamUpdated: 07 April 2020

Take it from us, homemade pasta dough is one of the most satisfying things to make. It only takes two ingredients, flour and eggs, and the skill is not hard to master. Follow our fail-safe guide to taking your pasta to the next level and get creative with lots of different shapes and sauces.

Top Tips:

• Just-made pasta dough needs to have the right texture – this is key to getting a good finished result. It should be fairly stiff, with a slight tackiness. Smooth and malleable, and not sticking to your fingers or the surface. If it’s too dry, add a small amount of water or, if it’s too wet, add a small amount of pasta flour.

• Trust your instincts. Factors like humidity, slight variations between batches and brands of pasta flour and eggs sizes can effect the dough texture. So it’s best to get a feel for that stiff, kneadable but slightly tacky, texture you’re after and keep adding small amounts of pasta flour or water until its right.

• Don’t add all of the pasta flour that the recipe states right at the beginning. Make the dough by keeping back a portion of the flour and then you can always keep adding small amounts to get the texture right.

• For a more accurate consistency, make the dough by hand, rather than in a food processor.

• If you don’t have a pasta machine, it’s possible to roll out the pasta sheets with a rolling pin. Just be patient and allow the gluten to relax after a brief session of rolling, otherwise it will keep springing back on you and won’t get any longer or thinner.

• It’s important to dust your dough post rolling with pasta flour or semolina to prevent it from sticking to itself and aid the drying out process.

• Start with pasta ribbons, and then once you’ve mastered these, move onto the more challenging shapes.

• It’s important to air-dry you fresh pasta before cooking – or it will be claggy and heavy after cooking. You need to leave it to dry until it feels leathery.

• When it comes to cooking your pasta, since there is no seasoning in the dough, it’s important to heavily season your cooking water. It needs to taste as salty as the sea!

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Yields:

550

Prep Time:

10 mins

Total Time:

10 mins

Ingredients

400 g
(14oz) 00 pasta flour, plus extra to dust
4
large eggs

Directions

FOR THE DOUGH
1 In a food processor, pulse the flour and eggs until the mixture looks like large breadcrumbs. The dough should be soft and come together when squeezed, but not sticky. If sticky, add an extra 1tbsp flour. If you haven’t got a food processor, make a mound of the flour on a work surface. Make a well in the centre and add beaten eggs. Work flour into the eggs with fingers until you have the breadcrumb consistency.

2 Turn dough out on to a work surface, gather into a ball and knead to make a smooth, fairly firm dough. Wrap well in cling film and chill for 30min.

3 Divide the dough into quarters and wrap each in cling film to stop them drying out.
FOR SHEETS
1 Working with one piece of dough at a time, shape into an oval thin enough to roll comfortably through the widest setting of your pasta machine. Lightly dust the dough with flour.

2 Run dough through the machine on its widest setting. Fold the strip into thirds, turn, so one of the open sides goes into the roller first, and repeat three more times, until dough is smooth.

3 Reduce setting one notch, lightly dust dough with flour (don’t fold) and run through the machine once. Repeat, reducing setting one notch each time you pass the pasta sheet through the machine until you can almost see your hand through it.
FOR PASTA RIBBONS
1 Line a large baking sheet with baking parchment. Working with one piece of dough at a time, prepare a pasta sheet as above. Cut sheet in half widthways.

2 Working with half a sheet at a time (cover other half with cling film to stop it drying out), dust with flour then pass through your pasta machine using the linguine/tagliatelle attachment, cutting into 30.5cm (12in) lengths. Toss with more flour, shaking off excess, then transfer to the lined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, rolling and cutting as above. Leave to dry for at least 2hr or until the pasta feels leathery.
FOR TUBULAR SHAPES
1 Line a large baking tray with baking parchment. Using a pasta extruder (see GH Tip below) fitted with a shape dial on low speed, pass golf ball-sized pieces of dough through, cutting pieces into 4cm (11⁄2in) long shapes. Transfer to lined baking sheet in a single layer and leave to dry for at least 2hr, or until the pasta feels leathery.
FOR ADDED WOW-FACTOR
Lay a fully rolled pasta sheet landscape on a lightly floured work surface. Place whole parsley leaves evenly spaced apart on the left half (moistening them slightly with water if they aren’t sticking). Fold over right half of sheet, gently pressing to stick together. Pass sheet through pasta machine again until you can almost see your hand through the pasta. Cover with cling film while you repeat with the remaining pasta dough.

Freeze ahead

Prepare to end of cutting and tossing steps. Leave to dry out for 45min, divide into individual portions and freeze for up to 1 month. To serve, cook from frozen in boiling water.

GH TIP

We used the KitchenAid 5KSMPEXTA Gourmet Pasta Press with Six Plates (Optional Accessory for KitchenAid Stand Mixers), available from amazon.co.uk, £165

How to make pasta - tools and kits

The Good Housekeeping Cookery Team

An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).

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