Fresh pasta is easy to make at home without a machine or any special equipment. Add a few simple implements such as a gnocchi board and piece of wooden dowel and the variety of fresh pasta shapes you can make increases – and if you have a pasta machine, they’re almost endless.
Fresh pasta from more affluent northern Italy, such as garganelli, usually contains egg.
While fresh pastas from the south – such as Sardinian cicciones and Puglian orecchiette – are usually made without egg.
Gnocchi is a special type of fresh pasta as is the passatelli of Romagna and Marche and even Swiss spätzli.
A pasta machine and the correct attachments make it simpler to create long pasta shapes like tagliatelle – though with a little practice and a sharp knife it’s easy to cut these by hand.
Some pasta shapes, like spiralli, require a machine with an extruder attachment.
To make fresh pasta you’ll need:
For some pasta shapes you’ll also need:
Follow these simple tips for making fresh pasta.
Scroll down for detailed recipes, a step-by-step video, and comprehensive FAQ.
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Dried pasta (typical of southern Italy) and fresh pasta (more common in northern Italy) are both good products – they’re just made differently and traditionally served with different sauces. Fresh pasta is typically made with soft wheat flour (often Tipo 00) and, in northern Italy, eggs — giving it a tender, silky texture. Dried pasta is made from hard durum wheat, giving it the firmer bite needed to hold al dente texture.
Al dente – meaning literally ‘to the tooth’, in other words with some ‘bite’ or resistance – relies on the firm structure of hard durum wheat, which fresh pasta doesn’t contain. Made with flour from softer wheat varieties, fresh pasta is said to be cooked ‘until tender’ as it won’t achieve the firm resistance of al dente dried pasta.
No – you can make many fresh pasta shapes with just your hands. Others can be formed using just a gnocchi board, thin wooden dowel, knitting needle or a blunt knife. A pasta machine just makes long shapes like tagliatelle quicker to cut – and a few shapes, like spiralli, need a machine with an extruder attachment.
It depends on the style. Northern-style egg pasta is best made with Tipo 00, finely milled soft wheat flour, for a tender result – though all-purpose flour works as a substitute if needed. Southern-style egg-free pasta calls for a harder wheat flour for a chewier bite — durum semolina flour (semola rimacinata di grano duro) is traditional, sometimes blended with Tipo 00, with baker’s flour as a workable substitute.
It depends which region the pasta is from. Northern Italian fresh pasta, such as garganelli and tagliatelle, contains egg, while southern-style pasta such as Sardinian cicciones and Puglian orecchiette are egg-free.
Two common causes: not resting the dough long enough for the gluten to relax before rolling or moving through a pasta machine’s settings too quickly rather than narrowing gradually.
Yes. Shaped pasta can rest, covered, on a semolina-dusted tray at room temperature for several hours before cooking, or the dough itself can be made a day ahead and refrigerated overnight before shaping. Fresh pasta dough also freezes well vacuum-packed.
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