The Best Noodles I've Ever Eaten!

I had to make the title catchy, because I had a feeling that if I titled it "Homemade Noodles" (which is what this is about), many people might just assume that it's not worth the time and effort to make your own noodles and would not read this.  However, let met tell you that homemade pasta is so much better than dried store-bought pasta.  This is one of those things that I made and didn't tell my husband it was homemade until afterwards (he usually prefers store-bought over homemade, so I didn't want him to jump to any conclusions before trying it - sneaky, I know).  When I told him I made the noodles from scratch, he said that he realized there was something different about the noodles and thought they were gourmet!  Anyhow, they really aren't all too difficult to make, use ingredients that you probably already have on hand, and are way cheap!  If you try them and decide you like them, I would recommend making a few batches at once and refrigerating or freezing them.

Homemade Pasta
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
2 Tbsp water

In a bowl, combine flour and salt.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture; pour beaten egg into well.

Mix until well combined, adding up to 2 tablespoons water if needed to form a ball of dough that holds together.   There will be some pieces that are still a bit flaky, but it will come together as you knead.

The dough is still a little too dry and needs a little water.

Most of the dough holds together.  Notice there is still some flour in the bottom, but that will be incorporated as I knead the dough.

Once it is to the point where most of it holds together, place dough on a well-floured surface and knead for 3 to 4 minutes.  Wrap dough in cling wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.

On a well-floured surface, roll the dough into a thin sheet - you'll want it to be thinner than you think you need it.  The dough is quite elasticky, so it may take a while to get it as thin as you'd like.  There are times where it may even seem like you're not accomplishing anything with the rolling, but just keep going, you'll eventually get a nice thin sheet.  I put my rolling pin in the pictures below for reference as to the size of the dough ball and my rolled out dough.  My rolling pin is 12-inches without the handles.

As you can see, that little ball becomes quite large once it's rolled out.

Cut dough into desired shapes.  Cook immediately, dry, refrigerate, or freeze.

I don't have a pizza wheel, but I figured my fondant cutter would work!  I also remembered after the fact that if you roll the dough up jelly-roll style before you cut it, it's much easier to cut.

To cook the noodles, boil water and add noodles.  I let my noodles dry a few hours and they took about 8 minutes to cook, but you'll want to keep checking them, because they shouldn't take as long as store-bought noodles.  Noodles that haven't been dried should only take a couple minutes.

Mmmm...perfect al dente pasta!!  You've REALLY gotta try these!

If you're not planning on eating the noodles right away, but are going to be eating them within the next day, dry the noodles for about 15 minutes, then wrap them in a zip-top bag and refrigerate until you're ready to use them.  If it's going to be a few days or a few weeks, you can freeze them.  To do this, dry them for at least 15 minutes, then freeze meal-sized portions of noodles in zip-top bags, or flash freeze single-meal-sized portions of noodles on a cookie sheet.  Remove from the freezer and put them all in a zip-top bag and return to freezer.

Additionally, you can dry your noodles completely.  Make sure they're stored in an air-tight container or bag in a dry location.

You can buy racks specifically designed to dry pasta, but I came up with an alternative using things I already had in my house.  I took shish-kabob skewers and used cans to hold up the ends, then draped the pasta over the top.  It worked perfectly and only cost a couple cents for the skewers!

My make-shift drying rack.

The partially-dried pasta.

I was cooking the pasta the same day as I made the pasta, so I just slid it off the skewers into my boiling water.

I was planning on making another batch to demonstrate how to make them with a pasta maker, as well as to show you how to make other shapes, but my eggs had frozen in my refrigerator and cracked, so I'll have to do that at another time.  Sorry!