Easy Homemade Pasta

In my opinion, cooking doesn't get much easier than opening up a box of noodles & throwing it in some boiling water. During a girls night in, one of my friends suggested we make homemade noodles. I was surprised at how easy they were to make, how few ingredients they required (I already had everything in my kitchen), & that I didn't need a noodle press. Side note: your kitchen counter/table & hands will get messy.

Much of this recipe is based on texture, so you may need to add more flour or olive oil to ensure you get that dough-y feeling. Below is are the amounts of ingredients that worked for us.

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour (plus a few tablespoons of flour to sprinkle on your counter/table)
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:

Start boiling a large pot of water.

Place 2 cups of flour directly on your counter/table, creating a mound with a well in the middle. Sprinkle the 1/2 teaspoon salt over the flour. Add 4 eggs to the flour well.

With your hands, mix together the flour & egg, for about 5 minutes. As the mixture gets a little dry, add the 1/2 tablespoon olive oil.

Once all mixed together, and the dough is the consistency of a wet play-dough, place the dough in plastic cling wrap & let it sit out (in room temperature) for 10 minutes.

Use this 10 minutes to clean your counter/table.

Sprinkle a few tablespoons of flour on your counter/table. Remove the dough from the plastic cling wrap, & roll it out with a rolling pin. Roll the dough so it is very thin, almost see-through.

Using a pizza cutter (or a knife), cut the dough into thin strips that look like fettuccini noodles. As you can see from the picture, we folded the dough a few times before cutting the noodles, but this step isn't necessary.

Add the noodles to the boiling water. Fresh noodles take far less time to cook than dried pasta, so keep an eye on your noodles, stirring constantly. Once the noodles are thoroughly cooked, about 5 minutes, strain the water.

Serve with olive oil, sprinkled cheese, garlic, pesto sauce, alfredo sauce, marinara sauce, or however you prefer to eat your pasta! Enjoy your creation!