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This homemade whole wheat pasta recipe takes a little time to make, but it’s well worth the effort for delicious fresh pasta! Sure, you can buy good quality dried pasta from the store and it works just fine, but the taste (and pride) of homemade pasta is just too good to pass up.
Why we love this recipe
Homemade pasta is one of those food projects that is never necessary, but that is always satisfying. We enjoy making this homemade whole wheat pasta recipe, which is a 50-50 whole wheat/white flour mix. The wheat flour adds a little heartiness and some extra nutritional value to pasta night!
Once you get good at making pasta, it’s surprisingly quick and can be made with items you probably have on hand. So next time you want to eat some pasta, give yourself a little extra time and try making it from scratch. Keep reading for our homemade whole wheat pasta recipe!
Making whole wheat pasta dough
Making homemade whole wheat pasta is a fairly straightforward process, but you’ll need some patience the first time you make it. The first step is the easiest: add all the ingredients to a stand mixer and knead for about 5 minutes until a ball forms.
At this stage, the dough should stick together and shouldn’t be too wet. Then, knead the dough briefly before letting it rest on your counter for 30 minutes. Remember that we’re not making bread, so the pasta dough doesn’t require a lot of kneading!).
Tips for forming the noodles
Once the pasta has rested, it’s time to begin the most important part of the pasta making process: the rolling of the dough. Although you can roll out the dough using a rolling pin, a pasta machine makes everything much easier. We used the pasta maker attachment for our KitchenAid mixer.
Start running the dough through the rollers at their widest setting. You’ll need to continually fold the dough in half and keep running it through the machine to gradually flatten it out. As you continue rolling the dough, you’ll want to adjust the pasta machine so the dough is slowly rolled out thinner and thinner.
Once the dough is at the desired thickness, cut the dough into sections (the length of each section will determine how long each noodle is). Run each section through the die-cut side of the pasta machine, and bask in the glory of your homemade whole wheat pasta!
When you’re ready to taste this homemade whole wheat pasta recipe, simply drop the pasta into boiling water for 2 minutes, top with your preferred sauce, and tuck in.
Ways to serve whole wheat pasta
Once you’ve made this delicious whole wheat pasta recipe, there are so many fun pasta recipes and sauces to serve with it. Try is with:
- Red sauce, like this Marinara Sauce, Tomato Cream Sauce or Pomodoro Sauce
- White sauce, like this Cream Sauce or Vegan Alfredo Sauce
- Pesto, like Basil Pesto
- Wine sauce, like this White Wine Sauce
- Puttanesca sauce, like this Pasta Puttanesca Recipe
More vegetarian pasta recipes
Outside of this homemade whole wheat pasta recipe, here are some of our favorite vegetarian pasta recipes:
- Pasta Pomodoro
- Creamy Gemelli Pasta or Creamy Spinach Pasta
- Lemon Ricotta Pasta
- Sun Dried Tomato Pasta
- Broccoli Mac and Cheese or Cottage Cheese Mac and Cheese
- Mushroom Pasta with Parmesan
- Easy Stuffed Shells
- Easy Manicotti
Dietary notes
This homemade whole wheat pasta recipe is vegetarian.
Homemade Whole Wheat Pasta Recipe
This homemade whole wheat pasta recipe takes a little time to make, but it’s well worth the effort for delicious fresh pasta!
- Prep Time: 60 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 4 minutes
- Yield: 12 ounces (serves about 6) 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 cup white flour
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ tablespoon olive oil
- 3 eggs
Instructions
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the whole wheat flour, white flour, and kosher salt and stir loosely to combine. Add the olive oil and eggs and stir until a loose dough forms.
- Attach the dough hook to your stand mixer and knead the dough on low speed for 5-6 minutes until a smooth ball forms. You may need to stop the mixer once or twice to make sure all of the flour gets incorporated into the dough. Note: The dough can also be kneaded by hand for 5 minutes.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it into a smooth, dense ball. Cover the dough with a towel and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Roll the dough out using a pasta machine, or by hand with a rolling pin. To roll the dough with a pasta machine, take about ¼ of the dough (smaller amounts are easier to work with) and flatten it with your hand. Run it through the pasta rollers at the widest setting. Fold the dough in half and run it through again at the same setting. Repeat this until the pasta runs through smoothly (around 4 times). If the pasta becomes sticky at any point, sprinkle a small amount of flour on the sheet of dough and rub it in.
- Narrow the rollers one notch and run the pasta through the rollers; fold it in half and run it through again at the same setting. Keep narrowing the rollers one notch at a time and running the dough through once or twice. For the narrower settings, you don’t need to fold the dough in half if it runs through smoothly.
- When you get to the desired thickness (we like the third from the most thin on our rollers), lay each sheet out flat and sprinkle a fair amount of flour onto both sides. Slice the sheet into the length of noodles you want, then roll or fold each piece (see the photos). Then slice the pasta into noodles by cutting the desired width. Use your fingers to separate each noodle. Sprinkle with more flour to make sure the noodles don’t stick.
- Let the pasta rest for about 15 minutes before boiling it (this allows it to dry out a bit).
- When ready to serve, pick up noodles and shake off excess flour. Drop the pasta in salted boiling water and cook for about 2 minutes until tender.
Notes
Note: Don’t wash the pasta machine with soap and water. Wait for the pasta to dry and then wipe it with a towel and try to get all of the little bits out. We usually shake it around upside down, run the rollers backwards, and poke at it with a chopstick!
I don’t have a web site I am a home cook taught by My Chef Mom who was from Italy and cooked here in America, she was also Home Taught but was wonderful and worked in many wonderful Restaurants in her time. She has passed now and I have no one to go to. So I want to make a 100% whole wheat Pasta because I have Cardiac disease now and have been told no Pasta because of white flour mostly; I know Chick peas and and other veggies but they use white flour, can I substitute whole wheat? I am being Lazy I don’t want to do all the experiment’s myself. Gnocchi is not a problem I have made many substitutes like sweet potatoes, yogurt, ricotta.
Great question! 100% whole wheat pasta has a bit of an odd dense texture, so you’ll find most recipes for it have half whole wheat and half all-purpose. We’d recommend looking for legume pasta at the store, like chickpea or lentil pasta. It’s not quite the same, but many brands on the market have decent options.
Have you tried this with sprouted wheat flour? I have been sprouting my wheat flour then dehydrating it. It does cut down on the gluten, so I imagine with the regular flour it should be ok.
We haven’t tried it, sorry!
Can you add semolina flour to this recipe?
This should work but we haven’t tested it!