Learn how to make pasta at home! This 4-ingredient homemade pasta recipe is easy to make, and it yields chewy, delicious noodles every time.
This homemade pasta recipe is our new favorite cooking project! Lately, Jack and I have been spending even more time than usual in the kitchen, experimenting with bread, baked goods, and even okonomiyaki. But we keep coming back to homemade pasta. It’s super fun to make together, and it only requires a handful of basic ingredients. Of course, the fact that it’s absolutely delicious doesn’t hurt either. 🙂
My homemade pasta recipe refers to the pasta maker attachment for the KitchenAid Stand Mixer, which is how we roll out our fresh pasta at home. If you don’t have a KitchenAid, don’t worry! You could also roll out this pasta dough according to the instructions on a regular pasta maker. However you make it, I hope you try this recipe. It’s an easy, fun way to spend an hour in the kitchen with someone you love, and at the end, you get to eat a big plate of chewy noodles with a perfect al dente bite.
Homemade Pasta Recipe Ingredients
You only need 4 ingredients to make delicious fresh pasta at home, and there’s a good chance you have all of them on hand already:
- All-purpose flour – In the past, I thought you needed 00 flour or semolina flour to make great fresh pasta, but this homemade pasta recipe proved me wrong. In it, regular all-purpose flour yields chewy, bouncy noodles every time.
- Eggs – The key ingredient for adding richness and moisture to the dough!
- Olive oil – Along with the eggs, a splash of olive oil moistens the dough and helps it come together.
- Salt – Add it to the dough and the pasta water for the best flavor.
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Pasta
Ready to learn how to make pasta? Check out this step-by-step guide first, and then find the full recipe at the bottom of this post!
First, make a nest with the flour on a clean work surface. Add the remaining ingredients to the center and use a fork to gently break up the eggs. Try to keep the flour walls intact as best as you can!
Next, use your hands to gently mix in the flour. Continue working the dough to bring it together into a shaggy ball.
Then, knead! At the beginning, the dough should feel pretty dry, but stick with it! It might not feel like it’s going to come together, but after 8-10 minutes of kneading, it should become cohesive and smooth:
If the dough still seems too dry, sprinkle your fingers with water and continue kneading to incorporate it into the dough. If the dough becomes too sticky, dust more flour onto your work surface.
When the dough comes together, shape it into a ball and wrap it in plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
After the dough rests, slice it into 4 pieces.
Use a rolling pin or your hands to gently flatten one into an oval disk.
Then, run it through the widest setting of your pasta maker (level 1 on the KitchenAid attachment). I run the dough through the pasta maker 3 times on this setting before proceeding to the next step. If you don’t have the KitchenAid attachment, roll out the dough according to your pasta maker’s instructions.
Next, fold the dough… if you want to. This step is somewhat optional, but it will make your final pasta sheet more rectangular, which will yield more long strands of pasta. Plus, it’s super simple! Just lay the dough flat and fold both short ends in to meet in the center.
Then, fold it in half lengthwise to form a rectangle.
Once you’ve folded the dough, roll it out to your desired thickness. On my KitchenAid attachment, I run it through the pasta roller three times on level 2, three times on level 3, and one time each on levels 4, 5, and 6.
Repeat these steps with the remaining dough pieces. Each time you finish with a piece of dough, lay one half of it on a lightly floured baking sheet. Sprinkle the dough with flour, and fold the other half on top. Sprinkle the top with flour, too!
Finally, cut and cook the pasta. Run the pasta sheets through your desired pasta cutter attachment. Cook the noodles in a pot of boiling salted water for 1 minute, and enjoy!
Homemade Pasta Serving Suggestions
If you’ve never had fresh pasta before, you’re in for a treat! Its chewy, bouncy texture and rich flavor make it so much better than the dried pasta at the store. In fact, these noodles are so good that we usually serve them really simply. They’re fantastic with marinara sauce, pesto, homemade Alfredo sauce, or olive oil and vegan Parmesan or Parmesan cheese.
Of course, they’re delicious in larger pasta dishes, too. Use them instead of dried pasta in any of these recipes:
- Tagliatelle with Asparagus & Peas
- Spaghetti Aglio e Olio
- Fettuccine Alfredo
- Easy Pesto Pasta
- Roasted Vegetable Pasta
- Linguine with Lemon and Tomatoes
- Garlic Herb Mushroom Pasta
Find more of my favorite pasta recipes here!
Homemade Pasta
Equipment
- KitchenAid Mixer (the stand mixer to use the pasta attachment)
- Pasta Attachment (my favorite KitchenAid attachment!)
- Baking Sheets (I use these nonstick ones from Nordic Ware)
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned & leveled
- 3 large eggs
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Place the flour on a clean work surface and make a nest. Add the eggs, olive oil, and salt to the center and use a fork to gently break up the eggs, keeping the flour walls intact as best as you can. Use your hands to gently bring the flour inward to incorporate. Continue working the dough with your hands to bring it together into a shaggy ball.
- Knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes. At the beginning, the dough should feel pretty dry, but stick with it! It might not feel like it’s going to come together, but after 8-10 minutes of kneading, it should become cohesive and smooth. If the dough still seems too dry, sprinkle your fingers with a tiny bit of water to incorporate. If it’s too sticky, dust more flour onto your work surface. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Dust 2 large baking sheets with flour and set aside.
- Slice the dough into four pieces. Gently flatten one into an oval disk. Run the dough through the Pasta Roller Attachment or a pasta maker three times on level 1 (the widest setting).
- Set the dough piece onto a countertop or work surface. Fold both short ends in to meet in the center, then fold the dough in half to form a rectangle (see photo above).
- Run the dough through the pasta roller three times on level 2, three times on level 3, and one time each on levels 4, 5, and 6.
- Lay half of the pasta sheet onto the floured baking sheet and sprinkle with flour before folding the other half on top. Sprinkle more flour on top of the second half. Every side should be floured so that your final pasta noodles won't stick together.
- Repeat with remaining dough.
- Run the pasta sheets through the Pasta Cutter Attachment (pictured is the fettuccine cutter). Repeat with remaining dough. Cook the pasta in a pot of salted boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes.
Notes
adapted from Serious Eats
Make sure you add an extra egg, olive oil, and water if you live in the desert. I couldn’t attempt to knead this according to the recipe. It was beyond dry.
Overall the instructions were pretty good. I would only recommend one change. I put some flour on my rolled out dough but if you have one centimeter of dough not floured when folding the long pieces then it will stick which was a nightmare for me. Also, I didn’t think till after making the pasta, but recommending to cut the long strips would have made things much easier.
However, the noddles turned out delicious and I’ll definitely make again, just with some minor tweaks.
I’m sorry to say I find this dough way too dry. I normally like all your recipes but this one not at all. Lauren Allen has a much better pasta recipe than this.
Is it recommended to use room temp eggs? Also do you cook noodles immediately or next day? I’m excited to try this. I love some of your other recipes 😍.
Hi Emily, I’ve made this with eggs straight from the fridge before, and that’s worked for me. I think room temp would work too! I cook the noodles immediately or freeze them and then cook them straight from frozen. I hope this helps, and I’m glad you love the recipes!
I have made this twice and both times it was excellent!
Is it ok to let the dough rest for more than 30 minutes? If so, what is the longest amount of time it should be resting?
Hi Yvonne, I’m so glad you loved it! I think you could let the dough rest for up to 1 hour at room temp. Beyond that, I think you could store it, well wrapped, in the fridge for up to a day. I’d let it warm up a bit at room temp before rolling and cutting.
We returned home from Italy three weeks ago and promptly purchased a pasta maker. This recipe was our first attempt with our new tool. The instructions and step-by-step were flawless and so was our pasta! Thank you so much!
I’m so glad you loved it, Raina!
My first time to make pasta! Came out perfect!!! Thank you!
So glad you loved it, Lynn!
Can in I use a food processor?
I created the “bowl” with 2 cups of flour then added 1/2 tablespoon virgin olive oil as well as 1/2 teaspoon sea salt. My four turned ito a yellow gook. I couldn’t roll it because it eas running over my counter. I tried adding additional flour which just made a larger running mess. Just letting you know that I believe the recipe is incorrect.
Hi David, it can be difficult at the beginning to keep the eggs in the center, that part takes a little practice.
start the dough in a bowl and then transfer to the work surface, that’s what i always do.
I’ve read that Asian cooks, more often than not, mix their noodle doughs in a bowl and that Europeans seem to use countertops. Dunno if that’s true. I tend to mix and knead in a bowl. Pasta, bread dough, whatever. Feels like less clean up, too. I asked this pasta dough if it cared particularly, and it said nothing. Not a whisper!
Way too dry. I’m a decent cook but this was terrible. I tried and tried for 30 minutes to get this to even come together. A waste of time and ingredients.
Hi, Amanda! A couple things come to mind regarding your issue (I’m currently on the resting step of this recipe and the dough is perfect)
1. Whenever you make a dough, the amount of flour you need to get the right consistency will vary greatly depending on moisture in the air, and how loose or dense your flour is when measuring, even down to small variations in size of each egg. For example – I made 2 batches of this recipe, the first had about a half cup of flour left over. The second batch I had to add a bit more flour.
2. Kneading dough is an exercise in both patience and endurance. You need to use your hands, not a utensil. When you kneed the dough, imagine stretching the invisible strands of gluten, push it down and forward with the heel of your palm, gently fold over on itself and turn the dough 90°, and continue this motion, adding a little sprinkle of flour until it seems like the right consistency if it’s too wet, or leave some of the flour out from the beginning if it’s starting to look too dry while bringing the ingredients together.
I hope this helps you with further dough recipes!
The pasta tasted amazing first of all. The instructions were very simple yet thorough.
I’ve made this recipe 6 times so far, and every single time it came out perfectly! I recommended it to a friend who also tried it and it came out perfectly. It’s hands-down the easiest way to make yummy, fresh pasta at home! Thank you!!