How to Make Fresh Spinach Pasta
Making fresh spinach pasta at home is a great way to elevate your pasta game and impress your dinner guests. The vibrant green colour of the spinach adds a beautiful pop of colour to your pasta dish, and the flavour is absolutely delicious. The good news is that it’s actually quite simple to make your own spinach pasta from scratch, and you don’t need any fancy equipment to do it.
Just a few basic ingredients like flour, eggs, and fresh spinach are all you need to create a homemade pasta dough that is bursting with flavour. Once you’ve made your pasta dough, you can cut it into any shape you like, from fettuccine to lasagne sheets.
Serve it with a simple tomato sauce or a creamy alfredo sauce, or get creative and experiment with different flavour combinations.
Trust us, once you’ve tasted the difference between store-bought pasta and homemade spinach pasta, you’ll never go back.
Watch Homemade Fresh Spinach Pasta video recipe:
How to Make FRESH SPINACH PASTA Like an Italian
Vincenzo’s Top Tips To Make Fresh Spinach Pasta
Choose fresh spinach
Firstly, when making spinach pasta, it’s important to choose fresh spinach that’s bright green and crisp.
Blanch the spinach
Blanching the spinach by briefly boiling it, then shocking it in cold water, helps retain its vibrant green color and removes any bitterness.
Squeeze out excess water
Lastly, after blanching the spinach, make sure to squeeze out as much excess water as possible. Excess water can make the pasta dough too wet and difficult to work with.
Fresh Spinach Pasta
Equipment
- Wooden bench
- knife
- Food processor or Blender
- fork
Ingredients
- 150 grams Baby spinach 5.29oz
- Sprinkle of salt
- 250 grams 00 plain 8.8oz. All-purpose flour
- 2 Organic eggs
Instructions
- How to make the spinach:
- Spinach pasta needs an extra special ingredient – baby spinach! Place the leaves into a pan and put on the stove top at a medium heat.
- Sprinkle a pinch of salt into the pan and leave to cook, with the lid on, mixing it every so often with a wooden spoon.
- Switch off the stove and add the hot spinach to a food processor, blending it until it becomes a cream.
- How to make the spinach pasta dough
- Pour 250g/8.8oz flour on a wooden bench, create a well, and add 2 eggs and one heaped tablespoon of your spinach cream.
- Whisk the eggs with the spinach (using a fork) and slowly mix the flour by pinching the sides in, then combine the rest.
- Once the spinach and egg have disappeared into the flour, use your hands to combine the rest of the flour and repeat the same motion to bring it all together, then knead the spinach pasta dough.
- If you are happy with the consistency (making sure it’s not sticky), and there is a lot of flour on the bench, just scrape it to the side, and keep kneading.
- When it is smooth and soft, create a ball of green pasta dough and wrap it tightly using a plastic wrap then leave to the side for 30 minutes.
- Once the time is up, sprinkle flour over your bench, unwrap the dough and dust some extra flour on top.
- How to roll out the green pasta with a rolling pin (or a bottle of wine!):
- Cut the spinach pasta dough ball in half (covering the other half so it doesn’t dry out) and use your rolling pin to stretch it out by rolling it forward and back, then turning it over and repeating until you have an even, thin pasta sheet.
- Try to create a large oval or square shape before folding it in half 4 times, sprinkling flour on top each time you fold it.
- Use your knife and cut your desired shapes, the best types to make this way are: green spaghetti, fettucine, tagliatelle or pappardelle - just adjust the thickness.
- Unravel and add extra flour so the strands don’t stick together.
- How to roll out the spinach pasta with a pasta machine:
- Cut the rest of the dough in half (using a quarter of the total) with a sharp knife.
- Sprinkle flour on top of the pasta machine and also on top of the piece of dough.
- Flatten this piece slightly with your hands, before putting it through the pasta machine, on the widest setting.
- Roll the dough through the machine, then fold it in half and repeat.
- Then change the setting to the next one up, feeding the spinach pasta sheet through every time, up to (and including) the seventh setting.
- Once you have a beautiful, smooth sheet of pasta, select your pasta shape, sprinkle flour on the machine (and the dough) and feed it through.
- In both cases, once you have created the pasta sheets, you can also use them for lasagna or ravioli.
- E ora si mangia, Vincenzo’s Plate….Enjoy!
Video
How to serve Fresh Spinach Pasta
Boil a large pot of water, add a pinch of sea salt, and cook for 4-5 minutes. If cooking from frozen, cook for an extra 1-2 minutes. Depending on the pasta shape you make, visit https://www.vincenzosplate.com/recipe-type/pasta/ and choose a recipe! This pasta is full of flavour on it’s own so you could just drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on top once cooked and add a few fresh dollops of ricotta cheese….
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Do you have some recommendation for flour to use for gluten intolerant people?
My recommendations for gluten-free flours include rice flour, potato flour, tapioca flour, buckwheat flour, and quinoa flour. These flours can be used in a variety of recipes, but it’s important to read the label carefully if using a flour blend, as some may contain gluten-containing ingredients.