Let’s make homemade pasta! If you have flour, two eggs, a splash of olive oil, and a bit of salt, you can do it right now. You don’t need special Italian pasta flours to make great homemade pasta, and you don’t need to worry if you don’t have a pasta maker. You can make pasta by hand with a basic rolling pin. I make pasta at home all the time, and this has become my go-to “everyday” recipe. It makes a wonderful, versatile dough that you can roll out into a range of noodles and shapes.

What you’ll find here is my basic pasta dough and process. The basics. Beyond that, I’m going to give you an earful. I’ll walk you through a number of variations and considerations down below. And I’ll include step-by-step pictures of the process of making pasta dough. You can do it by hand, with a stand maker, or with a pasta maker. Homemade pasta is absolutely one of my favorite things to make and I’m consolidating everything I’ve learned about it over the years into this one post along with links to my favorite resources. It’s an ongoing journey for me, so I’ll continue to update this. Enjoy and happy pasta making!

Homemade Pasta Equipment

• Rolling Pin: If you’re starting out and making pasta by hand, a rolling pin (and a sharp knife to cut the noodles) should do the job. In a pinch, if you’re short the rolling pin, a tall water bottle could do the trick.

• Pasta Maker: My Atlas 150 pasta maker is a workhorse. You can collect different attachments over time to experiment with different pasta shapes. With a bit of practice it makes rolling pasta dough to uniform thickness a breeze. You’ll need a counter or tabletop to clamp it to. An alternative? A lot of people like to mix their dough in a stand mixer, and use the KitchenAid Pasta Roller & Cutter attachment to finish their pasta. I’ll cover how to use that down below as well.

• Pasta Drying Racks: Let me be honest, I have a range of them. Rarely use any of them. If I want to save pasta for later I freeze it (details down below). I did buy a stack of these Eppicotispai drying racks, but use them for herbs and chiles more than anything else.
• Beautiful Pasta Tools: I have a soft spot for beautiful pasta tools, and have assembled a bit of a collection. Some favorites are a traditional garganelli board, and I ask for a new LaGondola brass tool or pasta stamp each Christmas. My fantasy is that I will someday be able to use a mattarello to roll out a perfect sfoglia of uncut pasta. But my reality is that I love my Atlas, my sfolglia adventures are frustrating, and that’s where I’m at in my pasta journey.
• Spray Bottle & Dough Scraper: I’ll put these two items in the bonus category. They’re nice to have, but not necessary. I like the spray bottle to control the amount of water in my pasta dough. You don’t want your dough to get too wet, the spray bottle allows you to mist it, if necessary, to add hydration a bit at a time. The dough scraper is great for cleaning flour off countertops, wrangling run-away liquids when they break through flour walls, and cutting dough into pieces.