Name: Homemade Pasta Dough for Two
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 1 h 15 min
Total time: 1 h 20 min
Yield: 3
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 175g (about 3/4 cup) 00 flour (you can also use all-purpose flour); 25g (about 2 tbsp) semolina flour (you can also use all 00 or all-purpose flour); 128g (about 2 large) eggs, beaten (add water if extra weight is needed)

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Homemade pasta dough is so easy to make! Using just 3 ingredients, this recipe yields a delicious dough that you can use to create your favorite pasta shapes with the perfect chewy bite!

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Generations of Homemade Italian Food

I’ve been making homemade pasta with my family for as long as I could form memories. Every holiday, from Easter to Christmas, my dad would go down to my Grandma Connie’s basement, combine several pounds of flour with about 20 eggs on a massive wooden board, and make fresh pasta the morning of our holiday dinners! Making (and eating) my grandma’s homemade pasta will always be some of my most cherished memories from childhood.

The Magic of Grandma’s Basement Kitchen

Did everyone’s grandma have a basement kitchen? This was one of my favorite places to be as a kid. There were two dining tables, an old-school stove, and an extra refrigerator. Behind the kitchen wall was a bathroom, a room where all of our jars of tomato sauce were stored, and a storage area. I vaguely remember my grandma having a portrait of John F. Kennedy on the wall. I remember a time when I thought I could make homemade clay out of flour, water, and food dye and “bake” it in the microwave (this obviously did not work… I ended up smoking up the entire basement).

an old italian woman and her son make homemade pasta together in a basement kitchen — My dad, Tony, and Grandma Connie making homemade pasta together on Christmas morning 2012.

Homemade Sausage

This basement was where so many kinds of Italian food would get made. Every few years, my family would get together to make homemade sausage (which, at the time, I didn’t eat because I was an incredibly picky eater and thought sausage was weird. And now I’m a lesbian, so…). My dad would offer friends some homemade sausages to take home and cook and would always ask “Do you like it hot or sweet?”

an old italian woman with her coils of homemade italian sausage — My Grandma Connie making homemade Italian sausage.

Celebrating with Pizzelles

Another tradition my family had around food was to make homemade pizzelles, which are the first cookie I ever got addicted to. “Pizzelle” literally translates to “small, round, and flat” which perfectly describes this kind of waffle cookie. It’s made with a pretty simple dough of flour, eggs, sugar, butter, and traditionally anise extract, but more palatably vanilla extract. I loved watching my grandma make this with all of her sisters and sisters-in-law. Just a basement full of old Italian ladies cooking these in celebration of baptisms, first communions, graduations, bridal showers, and weddings.

Two Italian women make homemade pizzelles — My grandma and her sister-in-law making homemade pizzelles, an Italian waffle cookie.

Guide to Making an Easy 3-Ingredient Homemade Pasta Dough

Homemade pasta may sound intimidating to make, but I promise you, it is SO easy! Before you get started, I’ve put together this comprehensive guide with FAQs, links to products, and more info to give you a fool-proof guide to pasta dough.

What equipment do I need for homemade pasta dough?

Before you get started, here are a few pieces of equipment you should have on hand:

Food scale: This is so important, not just for pasta making, but for baking, too! I weigh out the flour AND the eggs in this recipe to ensure I have the perfect egg-to-flour ratio every single time.
Large wooden cutting board: I combine the flour and egg and knead it all on a cutting board. You can also do this whole process on a clean, dry surface. You could work in a large mixing bowl or food processor, if needed, and then pour the shaggy dough onto a board to knead once mixed. But, I will always prefer the cutting board!
Pasta machine: If you have a KitchenAid, they sell attachments for the stand mixers. I have a 2-in-1 roller that my parents gifted me when I got my first solo apartment, which flattens dough and makes wide-cut and thin noodles.
Bench scraper: You can get certainly get by without one, but it’s one of the most versatile pieces of cooking equipment, so I highly recommend it! I use this to help scrape up flour and egg from my board as I’m getting my dough together.

Why use a food scale to make pasta dough?

A food scale is one of the most used pieces of equipment in my kitchen. I *used* to think that food scales were reserved for gym bros who needed to weigh out the perfect portion of chicken, broccoli, and rice to hit their macros and not go a gram over their allotted carbs for the day (if you know, you know). But food scales are actually quite common in cooking and baking. Especially baking, because it’s more of a “science” and in science experiments, you’d want to get the measurements exactly right for the perfect outcome.

My grandma, however, never used a food scale. Probably because once you’ve made pasta for years and years, you get used to how the perfect dough is supposed to feel. She also made huge batches and measured flour by the bag, so she did some math in her head to know exactly what her flour to egg ratio needed to be. While I have mad respect for my grandma for knowing how to eyeball and guesstimate ingredient amounts, I am a bit of a perfectionist and once you’ve had pasta made with perfectly weighed ingredients, you can never go back to just “winging it.”

an old italian woman making homemade pasta — My Grandma Connie making homemade pasta.

What kind of flour is needed for homemade pasta?

My grandma always used all-purpose flour. It’s the most accessible and easiest to find in large quantities, and guess what? Her pasta was freakin’ delicious. My grandma was a simple, no-fuss kind of woman, so while *I* have learned to incorporate some other flours, I have much respect for her method of keepin’ it simple!

’00’ Flour: Also called doppio zero flour, this is the gold standard flour for pizza and pasta dough recipes. In Italy, they categorize flour by how finely it is ground, and ’00’ is powder-fine. If you can’t find it, no big deal! It’s usually hard to find in stores, and you might have to special order it. Just use All-purpose flour (truthfully, you probably won’t be able to tell the difference anyway).
Semolina Flour: There are two types of semolina flour–semola rimacinata and course semolina flour. The course flour is typically used to dusting on pasta or pizza dough to prevent it from sticking, and semola rimacinata is added to pasta dough to help give it some structure and bite. You don’t have to use this if it’s hard to find or too expensive, but I really love the way it creates a sturdy dough, especially for hand-made shapes like ravioli or tortellini. If you’re moving forward without this dough, just use more 00 or all-purpose flour in your recipe!

What is the golden ratio for pasta dough?

The easy tip you’ll probably hear time and time again from pasta makers is that you should use 1 egg for every 100 grams of flour. But, not all eggs weigh the same. The average weight of a large egg is around 55 grams, which is what we’re aiming for. But this is why I say to buy a food scale! Some eggs might weigh only 46 grams, and if you’re making pasta for, let’s say 6 people, and you unknowingly use 6 eggs that weigh an average of 49 grams, then you’ll end up with a dough that’s missing at least 36 grams of moisture! That’ll leave you wondering why your dough is so dry, because you’re missing the weight of almost a whole large egg.

You’ll want to aim for around 55-57% hydration level (meaning 100 grams of flour for every 55-57 grams of egg). If you weigh eggs and they come in under weight, then just add a touch of water. If they’re over weight, then just break up the egg white and scoop some out, OR add a little extra flour.

Should I use whole eggs or just yolks for my pasta dough?

I’m sure you’ve seen viral videos of people making homemade pasta with perfectly cracked egg yolks only. Using only egg yolks certainly leads to a richer dough that is deeper in color. But without the egg whites, the dough is a bit more tough and less pliable.

Egg whites are 90% water, 10% protein. Their high water content helps make pasta dough more pliable, which is ideal for shapes that require bending and folding (again, like ravioli or tortellini). Egg yolks have less than 50% water content followed by 30% fat, 16% protein, and a small amount of carbohydrates. Egg yolks give pasta a silky and rich texture and taste along with a beautiful yellow color.

So which one should you use? Well, it depends what you’re making! My recipe calls for whole eggs, which makes a versatile dough to use for stuffed pasta shapes or long noodles. An all-yolk dough would take a LOT of yolks to reach the right hydration level. But all-yolk dough is great for pasta shapes that don’t need to bend or stretch (fettuccine, tagliatelle, pappardelle). For now, especially if this is your first rodeo with homemade pasta, stick to the basics and use whole eggs! Once you get used to making dough, you can even try a ratio of 2 whole eggs and 3 egg yolks for every 400 grams of flour.

Can I use a food processor to make pasta dough?

I mean, yeah, you can. I’m a pasta purist and will follow in my grandma’s footsteps, kneading everything by hand on a big wooden board. But if I also follow in my grandma’s footsteps, I’ll develop arthritis in my hands at some point in my life and food processor pasta dough will sound juuuuust fine!

How to make Homemade Pasta Dough

Pasta dough takes just minutes to come together, but the real magic comes from letting the dough rest. Here is a detailed overview (with photos!) to learn how to make pasta dough!

Combine the flours: You’ll want a ratio of 7 parts ’00’ Flour to 1 part semolina flour. For this example, I used 175 g 00 flour and 25 g semolina flour. Mix them together in a bowl first, then pour them out onto a wooden board. Create a well in the center of the flour with walls high enough to keep egg from flowing out.
Incorporate beaten egg: Beat your eggs then pour them into the center of the well. Using a fork, start to scrape flour from the sides of the wall into the center, slowly incorporating flour until the egg becomes thick, like scrambled egg consistency. At this point, grab your bench scraper to scrape and fold flour into the center. Use an up-and-down cutting motion with the scraper to cut the flour into the egg to create an even mixture.
Knead the dough: Use your hands to gather the egg and flour mixture and start pressing it into a shaggy dough ball. Start to knead the dough for about 4-5 minutes until a smooth ball forms. I like to poke my dough ball and watch it slowly “bounce back” to know that it’s ready.
Rest. Knead. Rest again: Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest for 10 minutes. Then knead it again for 3-4 minutes. Wrap it again and give it a final rest for at least 30 minutes to an hour. I like to double rest because the goal is to have a hydrated dough. The rest periods allow the egg and flour the time it needs to properly hydrate after kneading.
Roll out the dough: Cut the dough into smaller pieces (for my example, I used two eggs and cut the dough into 6 pieces). Press the dough flat with your hands and dust with a bit of flour. Then pass it through the widest setting on your pasta machine. Knock it down 2 notches and pass the dough through again. Knock it down another 2-3 notches, depending on how thin you’ll want your noodles, and pass the dough through a final time to make the perfect sheet of pasta to use for your desired shape!

a mix of 00 flour and semola flour poured out onto a wooden cutting board with a well in the center — In a mixing bowl, combine 00 flour with semola flour and mix. Pour the flour out onto a wooden board and create a well in the center, with walls high enough to keep egg in the center.

beaten egg being poured into a well of 00 and semola flours — Pour the beaten eggs into the center of the flour well.

beaten egg in the center of a well of 00 and semola flours. A fork scrapes flour into the center of the egg — Use a fork to gently pull flour into the center and mix into the egg.

beaten egg in the center of a well of 00 and semola flours. A fork scrapes flour into the center of the thick egg mixture — Continue incorporating flour from the wall of the well into the egg until it reaches a thick consistency.

A bench scraper is used to cut together a mixture of egg and flour to create a shaggy pasta dough — At this point, use a bench scraper to keep folding flour into the center. As the dough starts to come together, use a cutting motion with the bench scraper to try to evenly incorporate ingredients.

A hand kneading a fresh pasta dough ball — Once you have a shaggy dough mixture, start to use your hands to gather the dough into a rough ball. Knead for 4-5 minutes.

A finger poking a ball of pasta dough. — I like to test the readiness of my dough ball by poking it and watching it slowly spring back.

A dimple in a ball of pasta dough — See! Cute as a dimple!

A ball of pasta dough wrapped in plastic wrap. — Wrap the ball in plastic wrap and let it rest for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, knead it again for 3-4 minutes. Then wrap and rest for 30-60 minutes.

Pasta dough being rolled through a tabletop pasta making machine! — Cut your dough into sections (for my dough with 2 eggs, i cut mine into sixths). Press the piece down flat and dust with some flour. Pass the dough through at the widest setting, then a medium setting, then your desired thinness setting.

FAQs

What can I make with this pasta dough?

My pasta maker has an attachment to make thin spaghetti and wider fettuccine noodles. I love using this dough to make filled shapes, like ravioli or tortellini. You can use this dough for any cut or stuffed pasta shape! Pair it with a fresh pomodoro sauce for the ultimate homemade Italian meal!

How long do I boil fresh pasta?

Fresh pasta cooks in a matter of minutes, so be at the ready at your stove once you drop your pasta into the water! For filled shapes, pasta will cook in about 4-5 minutes. For other shapes like pappardelle or spaghetti, it’ll just take about 2-3 minutes to cook. So, be ready to transfer your pasta into a sauce as soon as it is cooked!

Can the dough be made and stored ahead of time?

I don’t recommend letting the dough rest for any longer than 30-60 minutes. If you store the dough ball in the refrigerator, it will become quite elastic and tough to work with and might break apart easily as you try to shape it.

Can fresh pasta dough be frozen?

No, freezing a ball of pasta dough is not at all ideal, BUT you can certainly freeze shapes! My family likes to make fresh pasta like ravioli or fettuccine and store it in the freezer for a rainy day. Whether you’re making a long noodle or a stuffed shape, place the long noodles in “nest” shapes on a sheet tray, or lay your shapes out on the tray, and freeze for abou 20 minutes. Then transfer to a plastic bag and store in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Equipment

Food scale
Large wooden cutting board
Pasta machine (or KitchenAid attachments)
Bench scraper