How to Make Fresh Pasta at Home: Egg Dough, Rolling and Classic Shapes

Fresh pasta differs from the dried, boxed kind mainly in moisture and texture: it is made right before cooking, uses soft '00' wheat flour or durum semolina instead of only dried semolina, and cooks in a few minutes rather than ten or more. Recipes and techniques vary by region of Italy and by cook, but the core method is consistent across the sources below.

Two basic pasta doughs

The most common home version is egg pasta: fine '00' wheat flour mixed with whole eggs, following a ratio of about one egg per 100 grams of flour, according to the Italian food site Recipes from Italy and to chef Jamie Oliver's published recipe, which uses 600 grams of flour to six eggs. King Arthur Baking's recipe uses a close variant, about 290 grams of flour to three large eggs, roughly 97 grams of flour per egg.

A second, egg-free tradition uses durum wheat semolina and water instead of eggs. Recipe site Pasta Temple gives a ratio of 400 grams of semolina to 200 millilitres of hot water plus a small amount of salt. Recipes from Italy notes that eggless pasta made this way is common in many Italian regions, especially in the south, and is used for shapes such as orecchiette, cavatelli, strozzapreti, trofie and busiate.

Step-by-step: making egg pasta dough

1. Pile the flour on a clean work surface and press a wide, deep well into the center, leaving thick walls so the eggs do not run out, as described by Recipes from Italy and Jamie Oliver's recipe.
2. Crack the eggs into the well and add salt directly on top of them.
3. Beat the eggs with a fork inside the well, then start drawing flour in from the inner rim with the fork or your fingers.
4. Once the mixture thickens, switch to a bench scraper or your hands and fold the outer dry flour over the wet center repeatedly until a shaggy dough forms.
5. Knead by hand for about 10 minutes, pushing with the heel of your palm, folding the dough over, and turning it, until it feels smooth, soft and elastic rather than rough or floury, per Recipes from Italy.
6. Wrap the dough tightly and let it rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes; King Arthur Baking notes it can also rest in the refrigerator overnight, provided it returns to room temperature for about 30 minutes before rolling.

Making egg-free semolina dough

1. Mound the semolina flour and make a well in the center, per Pasta Temple's method.
2. Pour hot water into the well gradually, mixing it into the flour with a fork.
3. Press the crumbly mixture together and knead for at least 10 minutes without adding extra water, using a heel-of-hand pressing and 45-degree turning motion.
4. Wrap the dough and rest it for 30 minutes at room temperature until the surface turns smooth and silky.

Rolling, cutting and shaping

After resting, divide the dough into workable pieces — Recipes from Italy suggests tennis-ball-sized portions. With a pasta machine, pass each piece through the widest setting first, fold it and repeat several times to build gluten structure (Jamie Oliver's recipe calls for five to six folds), then run it through progressively narrower settings. Recipes from Italy lists roughly 1 millimetre as the typical final thickness for most cut pasta, while King Arthur Baking's version is rolled and then cut into 12-inch lengths before passing it through a noodle cutter.

Without a machine, Jamie Oliver's instructions describe rolling small portions into thin circles with a rolling pin rather than attempting one large rectangular sheet, since achieving even thickness by hand over a big area is difficult.

Cooking and storing fresh pasta

Fresh pasta cooks faster than dried pasta. Recipes from Italy states fresh pasta is typically done in 3 to 5 minutes in plenty of salted boiling water, with frequent stirring; King Arthur Baking's recipe specifies boiling gently for 3 to 4 minutes. It should be shaped and cooked soon after rolling, since Jamie Oliver's recipe warns that sheets dry out and crack quickly once cut.

For storage, Recipes from Italy recommends letting cut pasta dry briefly before refrigerating it for up to 1–2 days, or forming it into nests, freezing them on a tray for one to two hours, then transferring to freezer bags for up to one month; frozen pasta can be cooked directly without thawing, adding roughly 5–6 minutes to the cooking time.