A comprehensive guide to making homemade fresh egg pasta with your Kitchenaid Pasta Attachment, from forming an egg well to kneading the dough to rolling it out. Once you get the hang of it, I truly believe you'll love the relaxing act of making pasta!

I have a soft spot for freshly made pasta, especially classic egg pasta. Fresh egg pasta is delicate and velvety, with a slight chew. I love how it clings to light, creamy sauces and rich ragus.

It's such a treat to make fresh pasta dough. When I feel a craving coming on, I'll set aside a weekend afternoon to hone my craft. In my opinion, it's all about the mood you set for yourself when starting a project. I make sure to play some soft music, pour a glass of wine (or sparkling lemonade!), and get to it. I might invite a friend over, or maybe I'll use the time to relax and practice self-care.

And you know the best part? Pasta uses very common household ingredients, so you can enjoy a delicious bowl any time a craving hits.

Why You'll Love This Recipe

When making homemade pasta, there are a few key elements required to understand to really nail the process: kneading the dough, rolling it out, cooking the pasta, and storing the pasta. In this guide, I will walk through each of these different areas.

Once you're done reading, I'm confident you'll be on your way to making delicious, lovingly made homemade pasta. Here's a few more reasons you should try this recipe:

• I've made homemade pasta dozens and dozens of times after first learning the process at a local culinary institute.
• I've enjoyed different versions and variations of pasta in restaurants across the United States and Italy.
• I've made ALL of the mistakes, so you don't have to! I do my research. I have multiple cookbooks on pasta that I've consulted to make this as seamless as possible.
• In 2020, I learned a new pasta shape every week to hone my craft, I ran virtual pasta workshops, and I even tested an upcoming pasta cookbook!
• I include tons of tips, tricks, and best practices. And I provide guidance on how to cut tagliatelle, fettuccine, pappardelle, and spaghetti.

Notes & Caveats

• There are many different ways to make fresh pasta, but this method is my personal favorite. Where possible, I provide additional links to resources if you’d like to learn from master pastaias.
• This recipe is for fresh pasta. For a guide to cooking dried pasta and/or inspiration for sauces to pair with your pasta, see my Guide to Cooking Pasta Properly.

Perfecting the Dough

What do we mean when we say we want to make great pasta dough? Depending on the type of dough, this could mean different things.

Fresh fettuccine, for example, is often silky, soft and smooth with a slight elastic quality. Ricotta gnocchi melts in your mouth, and should never be tough or chunky. Malloreddus has a really chewy, satisfying bite to it.

While each individual pasta shape has a rich history and unique textural profile, many shapes use the same base dough and technique.

Here, we're focusing on egg dough. Below, I've listed a few facts on this type of pasta:

• Fettuccine, pappardelle, farfalle, garganelli, and ravioli are all examples of pasta shapes using egg dough. Some recipes use just egg yolks, and others use whole eggs (more on that later).
• These doughs are rolled out via a pasta machine or rolling pin into flattened sheets before being cut into individual shapes.
• Traditionally, these doughs originated from Northern and some areas of Central Italy.

Traditionally, fresh pasta follows a ratio of 1 egg to 100g flour (Encyclopedia of Pasta). However, this isn't the most helpful formula because eggs can be very different sizes. The new rule I follow comes from Evan Funke, who suggests that egg dough should have 57% hydration of flour to liquid.

Ultimately, though, pasta comes down to feel. If the dough feels dry, you will want to add more moisture; if it feels wet, you will want to add more flour. As you become more comfortable, this will become second nature to you!

Key Ingredients

Flour

Flour is a vital ingredient in pasta. Kneading flour with liquid (in this case, eggs) allows gluten to form from the proteins in the flour. This gluten formation creates the characteristic slightly stretchy, elastic texture in pasta.

There are several different types of flour used in homemade pasta, from 00 to semolina. More recently, some chefs in the US have also started using local flours, like red fife wheat. So what's the best option here?

Understanding flours can be confusing. The most important thing to note is that there are two main types of flours used in pasta making: a softer, lower protein flour and harder, higher protein flour.

According to Marc Vetri in Mastering Pasta, soft flours provide elasticity, or stretch, while harder flours create more plasticity to ensure shapes stay in place. Soft flours are used in the typical egg yolk doughs — think of that subtle, stretchy/springiness in fettuccine, while hard flours help create shapes in semolina doughs, like orecchiette.

But we can also think outside of the box. Play around with adding 10%, 20% or 30% hard flours to a soft flour dough and see what happens. As long as you have an understanding of when and why you’d want to use a lower vs. higher protein flour, you can experiment with different combinations of the two and different combinations of different flours.

An Overview of Common Flours

My recipe calls for 00 only, but you can to add 10% to 25% semolina flour if you want more of a chew. Semolina flour is also a great flour for dusting. Let's discuss each of the flours below.

00 Flour: Most people use Italian 00 flour for their pasta — the “00” annotation refers to the fineness of the flour when milled, which helps ensure that the pasta can easily slide through the rollers. 00 is the most finely milled flour in Italy and considered a softer wheat flour (so lower protein). The result is a soft, delicate, and luxurious bite of pasta. I prefer Antimo Caputo's 00 flour.

Semolina Flour: Semolina flour is made by milling durum flour, a hard wheat flour with higher protein and a characteristic pale yellow color. Because of its coarse nature, it’s most often used to for dusting, to keep pasta from sticking to itself. Some pasta recipes may call for semolina, but most will call for a finer ground (durum wheat or semola).

Durum Wheat Flour / Semola Rimacinata: This flour is made by grinding semolina even further into a finer ground. Generally, products labeled 'durum wheat flour' are interchangeable with semola rimacinata. In addition to being higher protein, this flour also has a slightly rougher texture, allowing sauces to get trapped and cling to the noodles.

Other flours: Chestnut, farro, and buckwheat flours are also used in some pasta recipes. Some of these alternative flours became popular in times of rationing, for example during wartime.

A note on local flour: Homemade pasta is delicious, no matter what ingredients you’re using. However, the flour that we buy in a grocery store or via Amazon is much staler than a freshly milled flour (local or milled yourself). I highly recommend trying some local flours in your pasta to see the difference, replacing 10% to 25% of the 00 flour with your local variety. Again, experimentation is key here – don’t feel afraid to play around! If you’re interested in learning more, Mastering Pasta goes into a lot of detail on this.

tl;dr: 00 flour yields a soft, delicate texture. A mix of 00 flour and semolina flour will produce more of a bite.

Eggs

If I can afford to, I always try to use high quality eggs in my pasta as I feel it really adds to the richness and luxuriousness of the dough. I’ve made doughs with just egg yolks and doughs with whole eggs. Egg yolks add richness and a bit more firmness because of their protein, while whites provide more hydration.

Whole egg doughs are easier to work with, and just as delicious, so that's what I recommend for this recipe. Feel free to experiment as you like, though!

Olive Oil

Some pasta doughs include olive oil for added moisture and easier rolling.

Key Equipment

• Kitchenaid Stand Mixer and a Kitchenaid Pasta Attachment: You'll need the pasta roller attachment and optionally, the cutter attachments.
• Scale: Optional, but highly recommended for accurate results
• Bench scraper or a sharp knife
• Baking sheets

How to Make Homemade Pasta

Make the Dough

Make a well:

For beginners, I recommend building your well in a large bowl to avoid a mess (in case the eggs break).

Measure out your flour onto a cutting board or large wooden work surface. Make a strong well with your fist (or a glass) in the center of the flour, then widen it. You’re looking for a wide, almost crater-like well so that the eggs do not spill over the top.

Slowly add eggs, one at a time into the well. If you notice the well isn’t tall or wide enough, you can continue to adjust. Add olive oil and salt. Using a fork, poke the eggs and whisk them until homogenous.

Mix the flour into the eggs:

Slowly begin mixing some of the surrounding flour into the well, being careful not to break it. If you do happen to break the well, it’s totally fine — it’ll just make it slightly harder to get a homogenous dough ball as quickly.

Mix until a thick paste forms:

Begin incorporating more and more of the flour into the well, whisking with the fork until the liquid in the well starts thickening. Once it becomes thick and solid, place the fork down and begin kneading with your hands.

Begin kneading the dough:

Alternate between incorporating more of the remaining flour and kneading the dough. A bench scraper is a helpful tool to pick up any of those scraggly bits from the work surface as well as your own hands.

Continue kneading the dough until it comes together into a shaggy mass. If it’s feeling quite dry (which can happen in the winter), you can wrap the dough in plastic wrap and allow it to rest for 15 minutes to hydrate better.

Once the dough has come together into a solid mass, wash and dry your hands and discard any unincorporated dry bits from the work surface with a bench scraper (see the tip below for more details).

Knead aggressively for 5 to 7 minutes, digging the heel of one hand into the dough and stretching it, then folding it over itself. Rotate the dough 45 degrees and continue digging, stretching, and folding. If the dough starts to dry out, you can lightly wet your hands or mist the dough directly to control the humidity.

Tip: When watching Evan Funke, a master pastaio, he noted that once your pasta is in a solid ball, it takes much more effort to smoothly incorporate small scraggly bits into the dough. If there are a few bits leftover, just move them to the side and continue kneading the rest.

Knead until smooth:

At this point, your dough should feel quite smooth and slightly tacky but not sticky, with no dry bits remaining.

Rest the dough:

Wrap your smooth dough tightly in plastic wrap. Rest for at least 20 minutes (up to 2 hours) at room temperature before rolling out. You can keep it in the fridge, wrapped tightly, for 1-2 days but I prefer to roll it out the same day.

After 20 minutes, your dough should feel very smooth and soft.

Divide the dough:

Divide rested dough into 4 equal pieces. Roll out one piece at a time, leaving the rest in plastic wrap. Roll out the section of dough until it’s about ⅓-inch thick.

Roll Out the Dough

Feed and shape the dough:

Attach your roller attachment to the Kitchenaid and turn the dial to ‘1’ (this is the widest setting). Set the mixer to the lowest setting (‘Stir), then feed the dough through the attachment.

Shape the dough:

After the initial feeding, the dough will form an oval shape. To make a uniform rectangle, fold one end halfway up the dough, then fold the other end on top so you’ll have three even layers like an envelope. Roll the dough out to ¼-inch thickness.

Continue feeding the dough:

Feed the dough through the next highest setting (#2) twice, then continue feeding through narrower and narrower settings until you’ve reached the thinness desired (see the below section, 'How to Cut Different Pasta Shapes' for tips on thinness).

If the dough is sticking to the rollers, you can sprinkle a bit of semolina flour on it.

Cut the dough:

Once the dough is at the right thickness, you can proceed to cutting and forming the desired shape. At this point, you can either hand cut the dough for shapes like tagliatelle and pappardelle, or switch out the attachment for the spaghetti or fettuccine cutters.

Store the cut pasta:

Dust the cut pasta with semolina flour to prevent sticking, then roll the strands into a nest and store on a semolina-dusted baking sheet covered with a kitchen towel. Repeat rolling out and cutting the remaining dough.

Cook the pasta:

Bring a pot of salted water to a rolling boil, then cook the pasta until al dente. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly, so it may be done in as little as 1 minute depending on the shape. Sauce and serve!

How to Cut Different Shapes

• Spaghetti: Most KitchenAid pasta attachments should come with the Spaghetti cutter. Simply switch out the pasta sheet roller with the Spaghetti cutter, then run the dough through the cutter. If desired, you can cut the sheet in half crosswise if you want shorter noodles.
  • Recommended Thickness: Setting 4 or 5
• Fettuccine: Switch out the pasta roller with the Fettuccine cutter, then run the dough
• through the cutter. Again, if desired, you can cut the sheet in half crosswise if you want shorter noodles.
  • Recommended Thickness: Setting 5 or 6 (I prefer 6 for thinner, delicate strands of pasta)

For other hand cut shapes, generously dust the sheet with semolina flour. Loosely fold the sheet of pasta over itself lengthwise (the long way) in 2 ½-inch increments, then use a sharp knife to cut widthwise (the short way) into desired lengths.

• Tagliatelle: Cut pasta into ¼-inch pieces.
  • Recommended Thickness: Setting 5 (for chewier strands) or 6 (I prefer 6 for more delicate pasta)
• Pappardelle: Cut pasta into ¾-inch to 1-inch pieces.
  • Recommended Thickness: Setting 5 or 6 (I prefer 6 for more delicate pasta)

Tips and Tricks

• Pasta is a bit of an art and science, so don't be afraid to use visual cues to adjust your dough. In the winter, my dough tends to dry out much more quickly as I'm kneading it, so I'll often keep a spray bottle nearby or wet my hands to make things easier to work with. Conversely, if the dough feels too wet, you can sprinkle a bit of flour on the surface.
• Keep your egg shells. Okay this sounds weird, but trust me on this one. When you crack your eggs into the well, discard the egg shells into a bowl. As the eggs sit, some residual whites will sink to the bottom of the bowl. You can use a little bit of this goo to bind the dough together if you find it's too dry and struggling to form a cohesive mass. This is especially useful (and even necessary) if you don't use a scale.
• Knead on a wooden cutting board, preferably. Wood is the best material for doughs, because it absorbs excess moisture while preventing the dough from sticking or drying out too quickly. It's totally fine to use a non-wooden countertop, just note that your dough might be slightly stickier.
• Trim off uneven edges and sides. For perfectly straight cuts of pasta, trim off any uneven edges of your rolled pasta sheets.
• Use flour generously. After doing all of this amazing work, you will be very sad if you find out that the tagliatelle you cut up stuck together into one giant nest. Make sure to generously dust the pasta sheet with semolina flour before cutting it into strands, dust it when you're rolling it up into a nest, and dust when storing.

Storage Instructions

Room temperature: Freshly cut pasta can be stored on a semolina-dusted baking sheet for up to 2 hours. I recommend covering it with a kitchen towel -- and if it begins drying out, you can wet the towel to give it a bit more moisture.

Fridge: Fresh pasta can be stored in the fridge for 24 hours. Technically, it's fine up to 48 hours but it will start taking on a gray-ish color from oxidation. To prevent stickage, line an airtight container with parchment paper dusted with semolina flour. Place the nests of pasta on top, then cover with more flour and another piece of parchment paper. Seal completely. If you have a lot of pasta, I recommend storing it in an even layer on a wide sheet that can be sealed.

Freezer: For longer-term storage, the freezer is a great option. Layer the nests of pasta in an even layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Freeze for 1 hour until solid, then transfer to an airtight container or ziploc bag and freeze for up to 1 month. Cook straight from frozen.

Serve This With...

• Creamy Mushroom Ragu (Vegetarian)
• Pantry Ragu (Meat-based)
• Tomato Sauce

Recipe FAQs

References

• Mastering Pasta by Marc Vetri
• American Sfoglino: A Master Class in Handmade Pasta by Evan Funke
• Encyclopedia of Pasta