Homemade Spaghetti

For me pasta with sauce is one of my ultimate favorites when it comes to comfort food. My whole family is Italian and so is my husbands which means that there are tons of Sunday afternoon pasta dinners, pasta courses for every holiday and jars of homemade tomato sauce in all of our pantries.

That being said making homemade pasta takes the entire pasta experience to a whole other level. The pasta is dense and rich and full of flavor and just tastes amazing. It is a bit of work, but the end result it totally worth it. This recipe is for homemade spaghetti but you can interchange your pasta plates to make any kind of pasta of your choosing. Later this summer when the tomatoes are fully ripened I will also be posting a recipe on making homemade tomato sauce and jarring it. It's an all day event we do every summer and this year I will be sharing it with all of you.



Homemade Pasta
Yield: 1 pound
Prep Time: 40 minutes     I     Cook Time: 6 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp salt

Mound the flour on top of a wood cutting board or a wooden table top. Use your fingers to dig a well in the flour that will be deep enough to pour the eggs into (don't mind my kitchen). 

Whisk the eggs and salt in a separate container until they are light and frothy looking. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the well using a fork or your hands to incorporate into the flour. It's a messy process, add the egg slowly so it doesn't spill everywhere and make an even bigger mess. 

Continue kneading the dough until it begins to form into a ball. It should look be firm and slightly moist, if it feels too dry you can knead a little olive oil into the dough.

I used my Kitchen Aid stand mixer to make the spaghetti, you can use a hand crank machine or even do it by hand as well.  I usually run the dough through the machine twice because the first time it always comes out in pieces, running it through a second time softens the dough and warms it up too. 

Follow the directions on your pasta machine. I put the approximately 1 inch pieces through machine at a time so as to not clog up the machine. 

As the pasta comes through cut if off around the 8 inch mark spaghetti. Drop the pasta in boiling water that has been salted. Let the pasta cook for approximately 6 minutes. If you make a thinner pasta, you will only need to cook it for about 4 minutes, a good indicator that fresh pasta is cooked is it will float to the top.

Serve with your favorite tomato sauce. 

Buon Appetito!