How to Make Egg Pasta by Hand

Anyone else getting a little tired of dehydrated pantry items? We sure are, so we put together a guide on How to Make Egg Pasta by Hand (no pasta machine required). Egg pasta is a staple in many homes and making it by hand is not hard. It only has TWO ingredients—talk about simple. The hardest part of How to Make Egg Pasta by Hand is rolling out the dough…but that just takes elbow grease and we know you’ve got it in you.

Fresh egg pasta tastes about 12,000 times better than boxed pasta (rough estimate) and you can store it in the freezer to use whenever you want (just as convenient as the boxed kind). If you missed out on Ryan’s Really Good Roasted Tomatoes  (or made ’em, loved ’em, and need more ways to use ’em), we’re also going to go through Using Roasted Tomatoes for Pasta Dishes  so you have four new ways to use roasted tomatoes with your newly-acquired skill: How to Make Egg Pasta by Hand.

Ingredients

• All-purpose flour or type 00 flour. Higher quality flour is best here, but you can use whatever you’ve got in your kitchen too.
• Eggs: quality is key here! If the farmers’ market is open near you, we recommend getting them there. Otherwise, find the highest quality, free-rangiest, most speckled-looking eggs you can get at the grocery store.

Equipment

Kitchen Scale            Bench Scraper            Rolling Pin

The Process

STEP ONE

Measure out 1 3/4 cups Flour or weigh out 9.5 ounces Flour with a kitchen scale.

And now that we’ve mentioned it…get a kitchen scale! You’ll use it way more than you think and it gives you super exact measurements compared to measuring cups. If you don’t have one and are using a measuring cup, avoid packing your flour tightly or shaking the cup to make it level—loosely packed is best here. 

Now add your flour to a clean, flat surface and form a well or nest to cradle the eggs. 

STEP TWO

Add 3 Eggs to your well and whisk gently with a fork, incorporating some flour from the sides of your well until a loose batter forms. Easy does it here—you want to keep the eggs from sliding out of your flour nest (but it’s no big deal if they do! Just skip to step three).

STEP THREE

Use a bench scraper (or a spatula if that’s not in your kitchen arsenal) to scrape, fold, and cut the flour into the egg batter mixture until all of it sticks together. At this point, the texture will look like biscuit dough.

STEP FOUR

Knead the dough by hand for about five minutes, until it comes together completely and you can stick the seam together on the back without it unsticking from itself. It’ll have some texture and bounce-back to it (sort of like bread dough).

If your dough becomes too dry as you’re kneading and starts to tear, don’t worry! Just run your hands under some water and then SHAKE THEM OFF and start kneading again. Be sure to shake your hands off as you only want to add the tiniest bit of moisture to the dough. If you have a spray bottle, you can also use that to spritz your dough (just one or two sprays should do the trick).

Wrap the dough in airtight plastic and let it sit for 15-20 minutes. See you soon!

STEP FIVE

Now that you’re back from your break, unwrap the dough from plastic and cut it into two balls. Knead each dough ball for another five minutes until they become smooth like playdough. The texture will feel sort of tacky to the touch. Remember: if it gets too dry and tears, wet your hands, shake shake shake ’em, and get back to kneading. 

Wrap both balls in airtight plastic and let them sit for two hours, or in the fridge overnight if you won’t be cooking your pasta the day of.

STEP SIX

Elbow grease time. Roll out your dough. Lightly flour your clean surface and rolling pin. Roll from the center outward (rather than starting at the edges). Try to get it as thin as possible—we’re talking paper thin, people. 

Rolling out your dough takes some time and effort, but we could all use an extra arm workout right now. You got this. We believe.

STEP SEVEN

Shape your dough! There are about a billion shapes of pasta out there, but we’re going to take you through four: two long-strand versions, one stuffed, and one tube-like.

A quick note: if you’re cooking the pasta right away, you can throw it in the pot as soon as your noodles are formed. If you’re cooking it later, put it in a tray or container and put it in the freezer immediately so it keeps its shape.

For any of these shapes, once you’ve cut and tossed your noodles, you’ll want to sprinkle them with just a tiny bit of flour to keep them from sticking to themselves.

1. Long-strand method one: take a knife and cut straight, parallel lines down your rolled out dough. Make them as thin or as wide as you’d like! Give ’em a toss. Super simple, super delicious. 
2. Long-strand method two: Roll your dough sheet into itself and then cut the roll across into whatever thickness you want (kind of like you’d cut a sushi roll), then toss them to separate. 
3. Stuffed pasta: Cut your dough into squares however large you’d like them. Think checkerboard cuts. Add a little dollop of whatever stuffing you’re using to each square. Avoid overstuffing—make sure there’s enough room around the filling so you can easily fold the noodles without the stuffing oozing out of the sides. Now match diagonally opposite corners together and press all your edges. Your square will turn into a triangle at this point. If you want to make a tortellini, take the bottom corners of the triangle and push them together by wrapping them around your finger, then press to keep them together. Cute, right?! Cook it or freeze it.
4. Rolled pasta (penne-style): Again, cut your dough into squares however large you’d like. Smaller squares will give you a penne look and larger will give you more of a rigatoni style. Now that you have your squares, position them diagonally (like diamonds) at the end of something you can roll on. Anything round and fairly narrow will do: we used the handle of a whisk. Use your tool to roll the diamond of pasta into a tube and press gently to stick it together.

STEP EIGHT

Time to cook your pasta! Boil a large pot of water over medium-high heat. Add a lot of salt (think ocean water—this is the only time your pasta really absorbs flavor) and bring it to a rolling boil. Add pasta, give it a stir so it doesn’t stick to itself, and cook until it rises. 

Fresh pasta only takes a couple of minutes to cook, so be sure to keep an eye on it. If your pasta is frozen, thicker, or stuffed it may take a couple more minutes to get there. The great part about fresh pasta is you’ll know when it’s done because it will rise to the top of the water! So just be sure to supervise. Then strain out the water in a colander when it’s ready to go.

Dress it up! Add whatever sauces and extras you want. If you need ideas, check out our Using Roasted Tomatoes for Pasta Dishes post where we’re showing you four new ways to use Ryan’s Really Good Roasted Tomatoes. 

Now you know How to Make Egg Pasta by Hand! Time to drop the boxed stuff—the real deal is so much tastier.

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How to Make Egg Pasta by Hand

We're here to teach you how to make egg pasta by hand (don't worry - it's easy). It's so much better than box pasta and just two ingredients!

Prep Time 3 hours 30 minutes

Cook Time 3 minutes

Total Time 3 hours 33 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour (9.5 oz)
• 3 eggs

Instructions

1. Measure or weight your flour on to a kitchen scale. If you don't have a kitchen scale, make sure you aren't packing the flour tightly. Pour flour onto a clean surface in a pile, use your fingers to create a well in the center.

2. Crack eggs into the center of the well. Use a fork to whisk the eggs, incorporating flour until a loose batter forms.

3. Use a bench scraper to scrap and fold flour into the eggs, do this quickly as the eggs will want to spill out. Continue to fold and scrape until a shaggy dough forms. (It will look a bit like biscuit dough.)

4. Use your hands to knead the dough for about 5 minutes. If you feel like the dough is going to tear, you can slightly wet your hands and start to knead again. At the end of 5 minutes the dough will have some texture to it, but will hold together and the seam will stick together. Wrap tightly in plastic and let sit for 20 minutes.

5. After 20 minutes, unwrap, use a sharp knife to cut in half, knead each half for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and looks like playdough. Roll into a ball and pinch the seam together. Wrap tightly in plastic and repeat with the other half. Let sit for 2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator.

6. After 2 hours, unwrap one side of your dough, lightly dust your surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll out your dough, starting in the center and working to the edges, creating a very thin even sheet of dough.

7. Cut your dough into any shape you like (check out the video above for examples of different cuts)! Toss your pasta in flour to prevent it from sticking together.

8. Heat a large pot of boiling water over medium-high heat, add a lot of salt. Add pasta to the water, stir, and cook until the pasta rises to the top (about 2-3 minutes). Drain and season in any way you desire.

Recipe Notes

* After shaping pasta, you can freeze it and cook it at a later time.