Homemade sourdough pasta

A while ago I figured out I could make pasta without needing a pasta machine, and started going a bit crazy for homemade pasta. It’s such an excellent way to turn an abundance of homegrown eggs into a meal that the whole family enjoys.

By choosing to make sourdough pasta instead of regular pasta, whole grain pasta gets the benefits of sourdough fermentation, which includes breaking down the phytic acid, making the wheat easier to digest, and creating a beautiful taste.

I make this sourdough pasta using fresh milled flour from my home grain mill, but you can use any kind of flour that you’d normally use for bread (I have not tested this with gluten-free flours though).

I really enjoy the taste and feel of eating this sourdough pasta, so have to share this recipe for it with you all here!

You can also find this recipe in my free sourdough discard cookbook.

How to make sourdough pasta from fresh milled flour

There are two basic ways to go about making real egg pasta, with or without sourdough:

• The first method is to carefully follow a recipe, measuring your eggs by weight or volume, and discarding any extra, before adding the exact correct amount of flour.
• The second method is to just mix eggs and starter in a bowl, and then add flour, bit by bit, until it seems right.

Because I don’t like food waste, and I like being able to make use of all the different sized eggs that my chickens are laying, in this recipe I’m going to be talking about the add-flour-as-you-go method.

The add-flour-as-you-go method is superior for making pasta from fresh milled flour and other whole grain flours, because different flours have different moisture contents and behave differently, so by learning to make sourdough pasta by feel rather than by measuring, you will end up being able to make pasta in all conditions, not just when things are perfect. This method will also work for white flour pasta.

Ingredients

• Any kind of sourdough starter at any hydration – it can be active starter or discard
• Eggs
• Fresh milled wheat flour (or use Khorasan, emmer, spelt, or einkorn)

For every 2 people you’ll be feeding, use 50g starter, 4 eggs, and around 350g flour (2 3/4 cups).

2 Serves	4 Serves	6 Serves	8 Serves
50g sourdough starter	100g sourdough starter	150g sourdough starter	200g sourdough starter
4 large eggs	8 large eggs	12 large eggs	16 large eggs
around 350g fresh milled flour (2 3/4 cups)	Around 700g fresh milled flour (5 1/2 cups)	around 1050g fresh milled flour (8 1/4 cups)	around 1400g fresh milled flour (11 cups)

Method

Mix and ferment

Mix the starter and eggs together with a wooden spoon, and then start adding flour, bit by bit.

Keep on adding flour with the spoon until it is too hard to mix, then start mixing in more flour with your hands.

When the dough is quite stiff, but still ever-so-slightly sticky, leave it to ferment overnight at a cool-ish room temperature.

Shape

For fettuccini, lasagne, ribbons, and other flat pasta: 

Using plenty of flour, take pieces of dough and roll each one out as thin as it will go. Hold it up to the light and you should be able to see light through it. 

Cut it into the pasta shapes of your choice. 

For orecchiette: 

Get pieces of dough and form them into sausages around 1⁄2” (1cm) thick. Cut into pieces around 1⁄4” (1⁄2 cm) wide, then use your thumb to make an indent in each piece.

Rest, then Cook 

Allow your pasta to rest in a single layer on floured tea towels for at least ten minutes before cooking. This helps the outsides of it to dry out so that they won’t stick together during cooking. 

Get your pasta sauce and the table ready – this pasta cooks really quickly.

Bring a large pot of salty water to a rolling boil. 

Add the pasta and stir it through. Put the lid back on and leave it to return to the boil. 

Once the water has come back to a light boil, remove the lid and boil it for three minutes, then drain and serve. 

More tips for the add-flour-as-you-go method of making sourdough pasta

If your dough ends up too wet, you can always add more flour while you’re rolling – this really is not the end of the world. If your dough is too dry, however, it’s going to be a pain to roll out, so always err on the side of too much hydration rather than too little!

I don’t properly measure, but generally for my 16 egg + 200g starter batch, I scoop in around ten and a half to eleven cups of fresh milled flour from my flour bucket (around 1400g). If the dough seems very very wet, then I’ll add a tiny bit of flour at a time until it seems about right, always erring on the side of having a dough that is too wet rather than too dry.

Sauces to serve with sourdough pasta

You can serve this pasta with any of your favourite sauces. Some of my favourite sauces and ways to serve sourdough pasta are:

• Plain tomato sauce (with some garlic and/or basil) with some grated cheese on top
• Cheesy sauce
• Onion, cabbage, and bacon
• Carbonara
• Garlic butter and greens with cheese on top
• As noodles in a bacon and vegetable stir fry