Fresh Egg Pasta by Hand
June 18, 2020 | By Jeremy Scheck | 33 Comments
I was fortunate to learn how to make fresh pasta from a true expert, Sfoglina Simonetta Capotondo. Simonetta is an artisan pasta maker from Ancona, Italy who visited the US last summer to teach a high-end Italian restaurant chain new pasta shapes and techniques. Simonetta won 2nd place in all of Italy for the best professional handmade pasta. I was lucky enough to attend half a dozen of her workshops and it became my new obsession.
[READ!] Important Pasta Facts: Generally speaking, from the center of Italy to the north, pasta is made with eggs and 00 flour. From the center down to the south, it’s made with just semolina flour and water.
Semolina flour and 00 flour are both made from wheat, but they differ in their levels of protein, “hardness”.
Many recipes mix the flours, but a “purist” approach from Bologna (considered an epicenter of Italian egg pasta) only uses 00 flour.
Many recipes call for oil and salt in the dough. You don’t need oil, and I prefer to heavily salt my pasta water and not put it inside the dough.
Dough Tutorial
Fresh Egg Pasta by Hand
Ingredients
- [AS A RATIO]:
- 80g Italian "00 Flour" PER 1 egg
- For example, 3 eggs and 240g of flour.
- I highly recommend using a scale, but 240g flour = a bit less than 2 cups.
Instructions
- Dump the flour onto a work surface in one single mass. Use a small bowl or your fingers to create room in the middle for the eggs with a ring of flour as a barrier.
- Crack the eggs into the middle and beat them with a fork, at first trying not to touch the flour. After the eggs are beaten well, gradually add the flour from the inside of the wall, still mixing with the fork.
- Once the middle of your mixture has a decent amount of flour mixed in, meaning it's no longer in danger of running all over the table, you can start kneading -- preferably with a bench scraper at first while it's still very sticky.
- Knead vigorously for 10 minutes straight (set a timer!), turning 90º often to try to keep a single seam on top. When the dough is totally smooth, form a ball and cover with plastic wrap.
- Let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. The flour will hydrate and the gluten will relax.
- Use the largest flat rolling pin you can find to roll out your pasta. Turn the dough often to keep a generally circular shape. It helps to let most of it hang from the side of the table, using gravity to help it stretch. If the dough feels on the stickier side, add flour as needed. If it feels dry, moisten with damp hands (A LITTLE AT A TIME!)
- Once the pasta sheet is very thin, cut to your desired shape. In my TikTok video, I show you how to cut tagliatelle. Make sure the pasta is well-dusted with flour so it doesn't stick to itself.
- If you're not using your fresh pasta within the same day, freeze it in a Tupperware. You can boil it from frozen. Fresh pasta can cook in 30s-2mins in heavily-salted boiling water. It's done when it floats and makes lots of white bubbles in the water. The frozen pasta will take a bit longer to cook.
Rolling Out Tutorial
Jeremy Scheck spent high school perfecting his signature cupcakes, making quiches and coffee cake by the dozen at a local bakery, and teaching cooking demonstrations at Williams-Sonoma. As a 10th grader in 2016, he began documenting his favorite recipes on a blog called The After School Bakery. In college, Jeremy learned to make 50 gallons of ice cream in the food science lab, how to prune grape vines in the teaching vineyard, the best way to milk a cow in Northern Italy, and why film photography is an art worth saving. As a sophomore in 2020, he traded blog photos for video and became a TikTok culinary sensation. Jeremy has been featured on the Today show, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, BBC Radio, People, and Access Hollywood, among others. Jeremy is a graduate of Cornell University with a double major in Spanish and Italian, and significant coursework in food science. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more about Jeremy.
honestly the best thing to make when you’re stressed at 3am
i love this recipe!! i make it with alfredo sauce and it’s to die for. so easy and good
I made this pasta as a date night and it was so fun! It was very easy and the measurements worked out perfectly even without a scale.
I love this pasta!! I cook them with a butter Parmesan sauce and it’s my favorite comfort food.
Me and my mom have made this twice! The best homemade pasta recipe we have tried!
I was always weary of making homemade pasta, but being in a quarantine I had nothing else to do and it was easy and some of the best pasta I’ve ever had! Thank you so much!
This was SO much fun to make and honestly so easy. Thanks Jeremy for a fun date night activity! Tasted DELICIOUS. I had it with your creamy mushroom sauce
this recipe is so easy and fun, but lots of work (my arms are always sore afterwards) !!!! i have made this pasta 4 times now, using different pasta recipes written by Jeremy, for all of my family to enjoy. i 100% recommend making it, even if you don’t have a pasta machine 🙂
The best recipe of pasta by far! It’s extremely easy, you don’t need fancy equipment and the pasta is delicious! Thank you!!
This pasta was delicious and the texture came out perfect! I’ve tried other similar egg pasta recipes and this one beats them all! Such a tasty way to relieve stress too.
So easy to make loved it
Right it’s my fav thing to do now
LOVED IT SO MUCH!! it’s delicious pasta and super easy to make 🙂 also a fun experience !
This pasta was really straight forward and so delicious! I rolled it pretty thin, but next time I’m going to try to make it even thinner because I thought the edges from the sheet of pasta were the absolute best.
Once you make the pasta how do you store it for say 5 hrs? Should you let dry them refrigerate? And what do you store in?
If I were to add the pasta to a sauce, how long should I cook it in the sauce so it’s still al dente? Sorry if this is a dumb question I want to try and make this with your red sauce but I’m a little confused on the cook time.
SO GOOD AHHH! I don’t have a pasta machine, so before this recipe I didn’t make homemade pasta. But this is so much better than store bought. I made a simple tomato paste sauce (from 177milkstreet.com), and it matched perfectly. Such good constancy, great measurements.
Absolutely amazing, anytime I made this pasta it had huge success, it’s really fun to make and works as a little excersise too
I’ve made fresh pasta a lot in my years and this is THE best recipe yet. The kneading truly makes all the difference.. I have no clue I was under-kneading my pasta dough all this time! I made a slow cooker beef ragu to go with it and it was PERFECT *chefs kiss*
For the flour can we use all purpose flour and how many eggs for 80g? So excited to try the pasta
Super excited to make the pasta but I have a few questions. Can we use all purpose flour instead of Italian flour? Also how many eggs do you add to the mix?
I used all purpose flower (even though it is not traditional) and it turned out wonderful!
This recipe is my stress coping mechanism. Works Always.
I’ve made this recipe many times and it’s my favorite pasta recipe! The texture and taste are the best I’ve found.
Made this today, super straightforward instructions. Your kneading tips were especially helpful. Used it to make ravioli. Would recommend!
can you make this ahead of time? and maybe store it in the fridge?
yes, either store in a tupperware in the fridge 1-2 days or freeze. either way, you can cook it directly from the frozen (or from the fridge)
So easy and fresh. I make this about once a week for my family and leftovers! Thank you, Jeremy 🙂
Could you make other shapes of pasta with this flour recipe?
Any sauce recommendation to go with these noodles?
Best homemade pasta I’ve ever made by far 🙂
I’ve made this pasta probably more than 10 times in the past 6 months because it’s so easily and so delicious.
I already made this recipe a couple times and my family and I are obsessed with it. It takes a bit of work but I highly recommend it.