Vegan Pasta

I've made pasta from scratch before, about 12 years ago. I was hungry for pasta but had none in the pantry. I had all the ingredients, except for eggs, so I searched out a vegan alternative. I don't have a nice Kitchen-Aid mixer or pasta machine, so I did everything by hand. Here is the recipe:


1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cups water
1/2 to 3/4 tsp salt
if you are making filled pasta, you can add 1 tsp oil to the mix.

Mix flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and add water and oil. Blend with a fork till dough clumps start to form. Then dump out onto counter sprinkled with flour and start to knead the dough. This process might take 5-7 minutes (maybe longer) by hand. Then I split the dough into two and worked with one half at a time.




Rough the dough out as flat as you can. I tried, but it wasn't as thin as I'd like it to be.




Then take a pizza cutter and cut the strips of pasta out of the rolled dough. Don't make them too thin or they will break when drying. If you make them too thick it will take longer to dry and cook later.




Hang the strips to dry. You can do this over a kitchen towel over a cabinet door or back of a chair. If you have a nifty folding clothes drying rack, that will work well too. Repeat with your second half of dough. Allow them to dry. The recipe I had says 20-30 minutes, but my pasta wasn't rolled thin by a machine so I just let it hang in the kitchen till it was time for dinner (about 5 hours after I made it) and some pieces were still a bit moist.



At this point you can cook it in boiling water. The recipe said 2-3 minutes. Again, my pasta was thicker so it was more like 5-6 minutes just to make sure it was cooked through. If you want to make this ahead, dry it and then store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. You can also freeze it. I choose to mix it with my favorite jarred vegan pasta sauce and added a bit of parmesan cheese (I know it's not vegan, you can add your favorite vegan cheese, or none at all)




Review: Yum! The only complaint was that I didn't make enough. My youngest usually doesn't eat sauce on her noodles - just cheese and butter, but she ate it tonight. I guess I will be making this again real soon!