Pasta Tools How-To: Working With Your Pasta Machine

Cathrin Simon
Aug 5
2 min read

Updated: Aug 7

If you've got a pasta machine tucked away in a cupboard somewhere, you're not alone — it's one of the most commonly owned, least commonly used kitchen tools out there. If that's you, today's the day to bring it back out. A pasta machine is the one genuinely essential tool for anything beyond hand-shaped pasta: once you want delicate strands like tagliatelle, or filled shapes like ravioli, you need dough sheeted thin and evenly, and that's exactly what this tool is built for.

Ingredients

Egg pasta dough (semolina dough can also be sheeted this way, though it takes more effort due to lower hydration)
Extra semolina powder, for dusting

Tools

Pasta machine
Large wooden working board
Dough scraper

Choosing a machine

You don't need a fancy Italian machine to get good results — a budget-friendly option will get you very similar outcomes to a premium one. I personally love working with my Marcato Atlas 150 (the "150" refers to the width of the finished pasta sheet in centimeters), but that's a preference, not a requirement. If you're shopping for one, secondhand is always worth considering — these machines are made from stainless steel, and their quality holds up remarkably well over time.

Prep your dough

Quarter your rested dough, keeping the portions you're not using covered in a bowl so they don't dry out. Work with one quarter at a time.

Start at the widest setting

Gently flatten your dough quarter with your palm, lightly dust it with semolina, and feed it through the machine's largest setting. Fold the edges in toward the center, and feed it through again. Repeat this a few times until you have a roughly rectangular sheet — this step is what shapes your dough into something workable for the rest of the process.

Work your way down the settings

Now feed the sheet through each setting twice, working your way down from widest to narrowest. Use your hands to catch the pasta sheet as it comes through. If it gets too long to manage comfortably, cut it in half. If it starts feeling sticky, a light sprinkle of semolina solves it.

Know when to stop

Keep going until you reach your desired thickness — for most of what I make, that's setting 5 or 6, though this varies depending on the shape. Thinner settings suit delicate filled pasta; slightly thicker suits shapes that need more body, like tagliatelle or pappardelle.

A note on timing

Sheet your dough close to when you're ready to use it. Pasta sheets dry out fairly quickly once exposed to air, so rather than sheeting your entire batch upfront, sheet just enough for the portion of pasta you're about to shape, then repeat as needed.

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