Homemade tagliatelle recipe

If you've never thought about making your own pasta before, homemade tagliatelle is a great place to start. 

Dried pasta is so cheap and tastes great, so why make your own? Well, because it tastes so good! We've got nothing against packet pasta - in fact it's one of our favourite ingredients, but homemade pasta is so different, and special, it's hard to think of it as the same dish. It's also a good budget meal that is still a little bit fancy - in fact this is one of our great cheap family meals. It's definitely worth the effort too - in fact, it's really fun to make and ready in less than half an hour. It’s a great way to introduce children to the kitchen too, as they help getting their hands into the wet mixture then rolling and stretching out the dough into stringy strands.

Ingredients

• 400g plain flour, preferably '00' flour
• pinch of salt
• 4 eggs
• 1tsp olive oil

Method

1. Blend the flour, salt, eggs and olive oil together in a food processor to form a dough.
2. Put the dough onto a floured surface and begin to knead lightly. Roll out as thinly as possible a rolling pin or a pasta machine if you have one and cut the dough into thin strips lengthways. Lightly dust the pasta with flour and set aside to dry slightly.
3. When ready to use, bring a large pan of water to boil rapidly, at a little salt to the water and drop the tagliatelle in and allow to float to the top. This should take no more than 2-3mins. Serve.

Top tip for making homemade tagliatelle

Fresh egg pasta takes very little time to cook so watch over the cooking pasta to be sure it doesn’t overcook. Pasta should have bite; al dente.

What sauce should I serve with homemade tagliatelle?

There are so many tagliatelle recipes you can try once you've made this homemade tagliatelle too. Think creamy salmon and spinach, red pesto and everyone's favourite - a classic carbonara with bacon.