Pasta Dough Secrets

One of the most common hesitations around making pasta from scratch is the sense that it won't keep: that all that effort has to be eaten immediately or it's wasted. It doesn't, and it isn't. Homemade pasta freezes very well, often better than it stores in the fridge, and knowing how makes batch-making worth your time. Which shapes freeze well Nearly everything does, with slightly different approaches. Long-cut pasta like tagliatelle or fettuccine freezes best in loose nests,

Almost everyone who's tried making pasta at home has hit one of these two walls: the dough sticks to everything, or it looks fine until you try to shape it, and then it just won't cooperate. Neither one means you did something wrong. Both are just pasta dough telling you something, and once you know what to listen for, they're easy to fix. When your dough is sticky Some tackiness is normal. Fresh pasta dough should feel slightly soft and cling a little to your fingers when yo

If you or someone you're cooking for needs to remove gluten from their diet, you've probably already got a good sense of the ingredients involved. Gluten is the protein in wheat responsible for pasta dough's chewy, flexible texture — it's also the reason we rest pasta dough, since resting lets gluten strands develop. Take gluten out of the equation, and you need a few adjustments to get a workable dough. Here's what changes, and how to handle it. Ingredients Your preferred gl

Beetroot gives pasta dough one of the most striking colors you can achieve naturally — a deep, velvety red that holds up beautifully once cooked. It's a variation on the veggie purée coloring method, using roasted beetroot in place of some of your dough's liquid. Ingredients 200g beetroot 400g fine flour (00 preferred) 50g semolina flour 200g eggs (roughly 4 eggs) A splash of water, for blending Tools Oven Food processor or blender Large wooden working board Kitchen scale Roa

If you've followed a few different pasta dough recipes on this site, you may have noticed the ratios aren't all the same — and that's not an inconsistency, it's intentional. The amount of liquid in your dough (its "hydration") changes depending on what you're making, and getting it right is one of the biggest factors in whether a shape turns out the way it should. Here's what hydration actually means, and how it shifts across the different types of pasta we cover. What hydrat

The most reliable way to get vivid, consistent color in pasta dough — using pantry staples like cocoa, turmeric, and beetroot powder.

Work color into your pasta dough with blended vegetables instead of powder — a natural approach that adds a touch of extra nutrition too.

With just two ingredients and a few minutes of kneading you can create something magical: semolina pasta dough, the basis for countless pasta shapes. Whether you want to handshape the famous pastas from Sicily or Sardinia, or sheet out the semolina dough to transform it into lasagne, or even rigatoni or garganelli - the options are endless. This is the perfect dough for anyone getting started with creating homemade pasta, and in its simplicity also lends itself very well to a

There’s a magic to making pasta dough. All it takes is a handful of ingredients, the right technique and a bit of patience and endurance. There are countless recipes for pasta dough (probably almost as many as there are Italian nonnas) but this one is a tried-and-tested favorite egg dough recipe, perfect for making silky long pasta shapes or filled pasta. Make sure to pay attention to exact weighing of ingredients as well as following the technique step by step to achieve a s