Making homemade pasta is a simple, fun way to experiment with a basic dough recipe. A base recipe can be adjusted to your fit your tastes. Making homemade pasta is often cheaper than buying fresh pasta and many chefs and home cooks believe it tastes better.

Basic Pasta Recipe
Yields 1 ½ pounds

Ingredients

• 1 pound semolina flour
• 5 or 6 eggs
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 to 2 teaspoons water

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl of a food processor and process with the blade attachment until the mixture forms large crumbs. Bring the crumbs together into a ball. Alternatively, you can mix the dough by hand. Mound the flour, salt and dry ingredients onto a large cutting board or work surface make a well in the center. Place beaten eggs and any wet ingredients into the well. Using a fork, pull the flour into the egg mixture to form a ball of dough. Knead the dough until it is smooth.

Let pasta rest at least 30 minutes before rolling it out.

Add olive oil or water if dough appears too dry or crumbly. If too moist, add flour until consistently feels correct.

Additions
Once you have the basic recipe mastered, experiment by using any of these additions to the basic pasta recipe.

Herb Pasta
Add ½ cup fresh chopped herbs.

Pepper Pasta
Add 3 teaspoons coarsely cracked black peppercorns or 2/3 cup roasted red pepper, cooked first to remove moisture and cooled.

Pesto Pasta
Add ¼ cup fresh or purchased pesto sauce, very well drained.