Making pasta is one of the most calming and peaceful experiences when cooking. There’s so much involved to making pasta that I find it almost meditative to work with when rolling it out and forming it, and the bonus of having delicious ravioli at the end makes it that much more worth it. Also, making your own pasta is made so much easier by using a KitchenAid Stand Mixer with a Pasta Roller Attachment!
To make pasta yourself, you’ll need:
- 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
- 5 Egg Yolks + 1 Whole Egg
- 2 tbsp Oil
- 1 cup Ricotta Cheese
- 1/2 cup Grated Parmesan
- Salt
- 1 jar Pasta Sauce
- KitchenAid Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
- KitchenAid Pasta Roller Attachment
- Rolling Pin
- Tea Towel
- Ravioli Tray
- Medium Bowl
- Small Bowl
- Silicone Spatula
- Pastry Brush
- 2 Medium Sauce Pots
- Begin by adding the flour, egg yolks, and oil to the KitchenAid Stand Mixer bowl.
- Load the bowl into the stand mixer with the paddle attachment and begin mixing at low speed.
- Once all the egg yolks and oil have been mixed into the flour, check the texture of the dough. When you grab it in your hand it should crumble apart with gentle pressure, but hold its shape when you open your hand.
- If your dough is too crumbly, continue mixing and slowly add water 1 teaspoon at a time until the texture is correct. How much water you need can change based on temperature, humidity, and what brand of flour you use.
- Once the dough is thoroughly mixed, press it into a ball with your hands, cover it in oil, wrap it in plastic wrap, and allow it to rest at room temperature for 45 minutes.
- After the dough has rested, lightly flour your countertop and begin squeezing the dough into a log with your hands.
- Use the rolling pin to flatten the log into a sheet approximately 1/4” thick. With the KitchenAid Pasta Roller set to size 1, feed the pasta dough through the rollers on medium-low speed. You may need to push the pasta to help it into the rollers for the first pass.
- Continue feeding the pasta dough through the rollers increasing the size counter by 1 every time until you get to size 5.
- Fold the pasta sheet in half, and then in half again so that it is 4 layers thick. Use your rolling pin to squish the layers together, and reset the pasta roller back to 1.
- Start feeding the pasta through the rollers, again increasing the size counter by 1 every time, until you reach size 6 this time.
- Now that the pasta is fully rolled out, flour the pasta and fold it up to make it easier to work with. Flouring the pasta is crucial to ensure it doesn’t stick together, and cover it with a slightly damp towel to prevent it from drying out while you prepare the filling.
- In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the ricotta and parmesan, and season with salt to taste.
- In the small mixing bowl, whisk the remaining whole egg with a splash of water to make an egg wash.
- Return to your pasta and cut into sheets 2 inches longer than the length of the ravioli tray.
- Lay 1 sheet of pasta over the ravioli tray and use your finger to gently push the pasta into the divots to make room for your filling.
- Use a spoon to put a small amount of the ricotta filling into each divot. It should fill the divot without being full above the top of the tray.
- Use a pastry brush to brush egg wash onto the pasta around the filling and lay another sheet of pasta on top.
- Use your hand to gently close the pasta and push any air bubbles out to the sides.
- Use a small rolling pin to roll over the pasta and cut through the ravioli, then flip the tray over to release the ravioli onto the counter.
- Remove the excess pasta, and carefully pull apart all the ravioli to separate them.
- Repeat for the remaining pasta.
- In a medium sauce pot, bring heavily salted water to a boil.
- While the water is coming to a boil, warm up a jar of sauce in the other sauce pot.
- Boil the ravioli in the water for 2-3 minutes. Fresh pasta takes a lot less time to boil than dried pasta from the store. The easiest way to tell when the ravioli are cooked is when they float.
- Once cooked, strain the ravioli and add them to the warm sauce and serve!
This pasta dough is very versatile, you can use it to make many different shapes and types of pasta. We used just ricotta and parmesan for the filling, but you can try using other cheeses, mushrooms, or meats in the filling as well. You can also use the KitchenAid Pasta Cutter Attachments to cut the dough sheets into spaghetti, linguine, fettucini, lasagnette, or capellini!