How to make homemade pasta without a machine

If there is one thing Baking School instructor Jen Rein wants you to know about homemade pasta, it’s this: “It’s super accessible!”

She embodies that ethos herself. “I’ve made homemade pasta while camping,” she recounts. “I used a wine bottle for rolling, a tarp-covered picnic table for a work surface, and boiled it in a pot over the fire.” If Jen’s escapades prove anything, it’s that homemade pasta doesn’t have to be complicated — and you can definitely make it without a machine. It just might be a slightly more labor-intensive process.

There are plenty of handmade pasta shapes that don’t require a machine at all, from simple pici to pillowy gnocchi. However, this article will focus on flat, ribbon-cut noodles — like Fresh Pasta or Semolina Pasta — since these noodles typically require a pasta machine.

Photography and food styling by Liz Neily

How to make homemade pasta without a machine

First, a rundown of what you need:

• A rolling pin; Jen recommends a long, straight, non-tapered French rolling pin, as the straight shape will help make more even noodles
• A sharp chef’s knife, to cut noodles
• A clean flat surface for rolling, plus flour to dust

Prep your work surface with an ample dusting of flour, to prevent sticking. “Never be worried about how much flour you use on your work surface,” says Jen, since most of it will come off while boiling the noodles.

Let the dough rest about a half hour after initially kneading it, then begin to roll the dough out using a rolling pin. You can fold the dough a few times at the beginning of rolling to help achieve a cleaner rectangle shape, making sure the dough is evenly thick every time you make a fold. If the dough feels weak and is breaking easily, incorporate more folds while rolling to add strength.

Photography and food styling by Liz Neily

If the dough is too strong, it may start to snap back and become difficult to roll. Like bread dough, the gluten just needs a few minutes to relax: Let the covered dough rest for 5 to 10 minutes, then return to rolling. If your dough is consistently giving you trouble, Jen recommends adding a portion of durum flour to your recipe, or increasing the percentage of durum flour if it’s already in your dough, to increase extensibility. (Or try this Golden Durum Pasta recipe.)

To roll, start in the middle of the piece of dough and roll away from you. Return your pin to the middle of the piece, then roll towards you. This will help you get a long thin piece and more consistent length noodles than rolling in a round. Repeat this movement: Start in the middle again, roll away from you, then return your pin to the middle and roll towards you. You want to roll all the way to the edge of the dough, so that it is evenly thick.

Photography and food styling by Liz Neily

You want to shoot for your dough to be roughly 1 mm thick, but this isn't exact: a little thinner or thicker is fine. Once you’ve worked your dough from thick to thin, you can test if it’s ready using a nifty trick that Jen likes to teach in her classes: Line the rolled-out dough up to the edge of the table you’re working on, bend so that your mouth is even with the table, and blow on it. If the dough ruffles as you blow, it’s thin enough. If it doesn’t move, it’s too thick and needs to be rolled out more. (Cook pasta noodles that are too thick and you’ll get “beef jerky,” as Jen describes it.) If the dough moves a lot while blowing, it’s very thin and will cook quickly — keep an eye on it while boiling. (Learn more: How to cook fresh pasta.)

Another way to tell if your dough is thin enough: You can see light through it if you hold it up; you may even be able read a newspaper through it. You may choose to roll a thicker noodle if you'd like a more robust bite to your pasta, in which case aim for your dough to be about the thickness of a quarter.

Photography and food styling by Liz Neily

To cut your noodles, use a bench knife to cut the dough into 12" long strips. Using one length at a time, lightly coat the top with a little flour (semolina is particularly good if you have it), then loosely roll it up. Use a sharp chef’s knife to cut the rolled-up dough into strips, making noodles as narrow or as wide as you’d like — about 3/4" wide for pappardelle, 1/4" wide for fettuccine, and just over 1/8" wide for linguine. Unroll the strips and place the noodles onto a flour or semolina-dusted baking sheet and toss to coat lightly.

The more times you roll pasta by hand, the more comfortable you’ll get with the process. And remember Jen’s advice: “Don’t overcomplicate it!”

Cover photo by Patrick Marinello; food styling by Yekaterina Boytsova.