How to Make Water-based Pasta (an in-depth guide)
00:00 Intro
00:24 When to use water-based dough and when to use egg-based dough
01:20 Semolina vs “00” flour
03:00 How to measure ingredients
03:35 Making the dough
07:56 Shaping orecchiette
11:16 Cooking orecchiette
Pasta Dough Recipe:
For 4 first course servings (3 main course)
300g semolina flour (ideally Italian semola)
175g water at 170F (77C)
Put semolina and water into the food processor or stand mixer with a paddle attachment (in the video I said a dough hook, but a paddle will work faster). Run the machine until a dough just comes together. Get it out onto a clean (unfloured) surface and knead for a total of 8 minutes (longer is fine). It will be sticky in the beginning and might require scraping off the counter, but should become completely smooth and not sticky very quickly. If after 1 minute of kneading the dough is still sticking, knead in flour 1 Tbsp at a time. Even if the dough feels great after 2 min, make sure you still knead for 8. Sprinkle the dough with flour, wrap in plastic, and rest at room temp at least 30 min and up to 5 hours.
If you want to make the dough completely by hand, here is a video that shows how to bring the wet and dry ingredients together using the well method:
Shape the dough as shown in the video. If serving the same day, cover with a towel and let sit until ready to cook. Or put in the freezer for 2 hours on a sheet until hard and then collect into a freezer bag.
Cook in generously salted boiling water. I use 65g salt for 6.5 quarts (6 L) water. After they float, they should take about 2 min, but make sure to taste frequently.
By the way, I adore Pasta Grannies channel It’s very inspiring and you can get many tips.
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29 Comments
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After posting this video, I learned an important difference between "semolina" and "semola" thanks to Adam Churvis. Adam, you get the comment-of-the-month award 🙂 What I am actually using in the video is Italian "semola" flour. I thought it's called "semolina" in English, but I was wrong. Both semola and semolina are made from durum wheat. But American produced semolina is coarser than Italian semola. I tested this recipe both with Bob's Red Mill semolina and Caputo Semola and got good results with both, though they were a little better with Italian semola. But I haven't tested this dough on a pasta extruder since I don't have one. I only make hand shapes like orecchiette, trofie, and cavatelli. It's possible that for an extruder, you'd see a bigger difference. If possible, get Italian Semola di grano duro, rimacinana. That's the flour I use. It's extremely confusing because many Italian semola flours are sold as "semolina" in the US.
Brilliant! Thank you, this answers a ton of my questions!
Any suggestions for me? I can only use cassava flour for pasta, I cannot have dairy , eggs or gluten, nor rice or legume. Can I use only water and cassava and follow the same protocol? You're amazing, btw!
I made this for the first time, all by hand and I only used AP flour, and it turned out amazing!! At first I was really bad at making the shape but it got easier in no time. I tossed the pasta and finished cooking it in a creamy chicken sauce with peas. I will definitely make this pasta again!!
Ended up having to put like an extra half cup of semolina flour just to get it to stop sticking while needing it
Hi Helen, thank you for your amazing fully explained videos, I have a question please, how can I store fresh pasta for sale, and what kind of materials should I use ? Thank you
thanks for finally explaining egg vs water in simple terms, subscribed for sure!
Thank you for educating me on flour.
Thank you for the instructions! How many cups holds your food processor? What are your recommendations for the size of the food processor? I can’t make my decision because I do not know. Thank you 🙏
I've heard other video producers say the pasta water should be salty as seawater.
Hello and thank you very much for the advice! I grind my own flour from wheat berries. Is it good / wrong instead of semolina? Any tips?
Thanks!!!
Hi helen great video I have a few questions like how to store hand made pasta for long time and which pasta is better to store egg or water pasta
I made orecchiette from this video and thank you thank you it was amazing. I’m allergic to eggs 😩 Is it at all possible to make lasagna and tortalini or ravioli from this. Doesn’t have to be perfect but my success with the orecchiette made me want to try it ALLLLLLLL? ♥️
Helen has never met me, and yet I am 100% certain she believes in me as a cook. I enjoy your videos so much, Helen. I have learned a ton.
Any recommendations for a dough that can be rolled without eggs? My daughter is allergic to eggs…
Complimenti per l'impasto che hai realizzato! Sono pugliese e apprezzo il tuo lavoro!
Hello, I just made this dough and used it on my kitchen aid pasta extruder but the macaroni noodles didn’t hold their shape at all. What did I do wrong? I weighed all the ingredients out and used the same flour you did.
Dear Helen, I was one of your students many years ago. Your Knife Skills class changed my life! And the lives of anyone who has seen me cook in my own kitchen. Just like with this video about water based pasta, your clear directions and explanations make it so easy for your students to replicate and then pass on the information to friends, children, and just this past weekend, nieces! Thank you so much for all your instructions. And congratulations on getting 1.4M views on your egg-based pasta video. I hope I can cook in your kitchen again some day! MaryAlice
Thank you!!!!!
I love how you lay out information. You pack a lot of info but it just flows. All that you said felt like it should have been a 45 minute video! I made fresh pasta twice and could tell where I made my mistakes already, so thank you!
Thank you for teaching me some stuff I didn't know
This video is brilliant! Thank you so much for this detailed tutorial!
Helen; Grazie Mille! For explaining the different flour and their proper uses. I have made egg pasta tagliatelle, and filled pastas for yrs., now I tried the small hand-shaped ones and couldn't do it, I followed another Youtubers video, with much frustration and no success, and they made their dough with an eggs + 00 flour…I don't know how they managed to make it appear successful! I have semolina flour, and will try your method, which I'm pretty sure will work.
Helen I made this dough per instructions (300 g flour and175 g water) and it was as advertised. Unfortunately I wanted to try making macaroni (tubular) with my new Regina hand cranked extruder, but the dough was clearly too soft to hold its shape. Do yo have a recommended water ratio that would help?
Thanks so much for this insanely helpful video, I learned so much!
Very informative. Thank you. How do you cook the frozen pasta? Do you thaw it or put itinto the boiling water still frozen?
Thank you Helen! You’re videos are so helpful. Perfect results every time.
Do you have to dry or freeze it before cooking?
So, I tried this recipe on the weekend because I wanted to try making spaghetti with the KitchenAid extruder attachment I got for Christmas. I weighed everything out as the recipe indicated but still found it to be quite sticky and wound up adding about another quarter cup of semolina. I thought it took care of the excess stickiness. I wrapped it in plastic and let it sit for about 2 hours. I rolled it into walnut sized balls and placed them in the feed tube of the mixer and when the spaghetti started coming out it immediately stuck together. I was unable to unstick it and cleaning out the attachment was quite a job. Because you said it's never too late to add more flour I did just that – probably about another half cup, kneaded it in and let it sit a while longer. Because of the mess of my machine I decided to roll it out and cut it into fettucine ribbons instead which worked perfectly. Not quite as luscious as the egg noodles – a very delicate noodle. I just noticed your response to a comment where you mention that you have not actually tested it with an extruder so thought I'd share my experience with you. Interestingly, the booklet that comes with the extruder includes a recipe for dough that is egg based. I wonder if your egg pasta recipe would work better for spaghetti.