How to make pasta, according to a chef and Food Network consultant

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• Regardless of whether you're using a pasta machine or rolling your noodles out by hand, you can make your own pasta easily at home.
• While most recipes call for semolina flour, our recipe requires all-purpose flour, which you probably have in your pantry at home.
• We spoke to Chef Dane Hiett, who shared with us his go-to pasta dough recipe, that you can use to roll out pasta by hand or on a machine.

Homemade pasta is one of those things that seem complicated to pull off. And with all that flour and egg, it can be easy to make a huge mess in your kitchen.

But whether you've been trying to recreate a delicious pasta dish from your favorite Italian restaurant, or were gifted a pasta-making attachment for your stand mixer, you may feel like the time is right to test the (heavily-salted) waters of DIY pasta.

Truthfully, it's not all that hard to do. "It's not as complex as baking, but it does have a similar end result," says chef Dane Hiett, owner of Chef Dane's Kitchen, a full-service, luxury catering business in Colorado. He spent eight years with the Four Seasons Hotel in Santa Barbara, CA, and served as a consultant on the Food Network show Restaurant: Impossible.

Since there is dough involved, you might think that pasta is as complicated as, let's say, bread. And while Hiett admits that making pasta is very precise, there is more room for adjustments along the way. "At the end of the day, I can see the pasta as I'm making it, and I can taste it and tweak it if needed," he says.

There's also a ton of room for customization based on your preferences. "For example, you could use almond milk or milk instead of water," Hiett says.

And while you could use the Italian nonna technique of making a well in a pile of flour and scrambling your eggs into it, Hiett's recipe is decidedly less fussy. "I make the whole thing in a Kitchenaid with a dough hook," he says. And if you then go on to use the pasta-making KitchenAid attachment, you could have perfectly-made pasta without making a huge mess. Check out our guides to the best KitchenAid mixers and attachments if you need a head-start on your pasta adventure.

What to keep in mind before making pasta

Like with baking bread, there are a few things you want to keep top of mind. The most important thing is to ensure your dough isn't too wet, according to Hiett. "This will make it difficult to feed through the pasta machine," he says. "But that's an easy fix, where you rub it down with more flour and run it through again." Make sure you're using a light touch, though, because you don't want to go overboard and cause the pasta to cake.

It's also super easy to make the pasta ahead of time and keep it in your fridge or freezer, Hiett says. For non-noodle shapes, just spread them evenly on a sheet pan, freeze them, and then store them in your freezer in a plastic bag. For noodles, you can take a handful and, using a fork, swirl them into little nests before following the same technique — freeze them on a sheet pan, and then store them in a plastic bag.

When it comes time to cook, you can drop them into boiling water straight from the freezer. Homemade pasta cooks a lot faster than dried pasta, so most shapes will be done in about 3-5 minutes.

The following recipe that chef Hiett shares can be used with a pasta-making attachment or with a hand-rolling technique. It can also be used for pretty much every shape of pasta. If you're using your Kitchenaid, make sure to follow the directions for each pasta shape so that you're inserting the dough properly.

But if you're going by hand, you'll need a little more direction. Since there are so many shapes of pasta, it is impossible to lay out how to roll out each one by hand. This is a great video to watch for a majority of pasta shapes.

Ahead, find one of the easiest pasta recipes you'll ever try.

How to make pasta

Ingredients

• 1 ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 large egg
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon milk or water

What you'll need

• A Kitchenaid mixer fitted with a dough hook
• A pasta-making machine or attachment

Directions

1. In a Kitchenaid stand mixer, add all ingredients to your bowl at once.
2. Using the dough hook attachment, turn the mixer on to a low setting.
3. As the ingredients come together, turn the mixer up to medium speed. If the dough is looking dry, add a splash or two of your liquid to make it more cohesive.
4. Once the dough begins to form into a ball and separate from sides, mix for an additional five minutes.

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer. Cover the dough and let stand in the fridge for 30 minutes to cool. From here, you can either follow the directions on your pasta maker to roll the dough into sheets to feed through the machine or follow these directions to create different pasta shapes.