I think one of the hardest adjustments for me when going gluten free was missing out on pasta. I never was a big bread eater, but we probably had pasta a few times a week. I do occasionally buy gluten free pasta, but it so exorbitantly expensive, so what used to be a staple in our home is now a rare treat.
That makes me a bit sad, because while I can replace pasta with rice in a vast majority of recipes, sometimes you just want pasta, you don’t want rice- you’re sick of it, and it doesn’t always do the trick!
I’ve figured out how to make my own gluten free pasta, and you have no idea how excited that makes me. Because now I can make my favorite comfort foods without paying through the roof for it. I figured out the cost, and while this is more expensive than regular homemade noodles, it is about half the cost of the store bought gluten free noodles. I used store bought brown rice flour for my gluten free mix because I was too lazy to grind it in my coffee grinder, but if I had, it would have been even cheaper. (It comes out to be approximately 65 cents per pound of cooked noodles, based on the prices in my area, but depending on how much your gluten free flours and eggs cost, you’ll get different prices.)
No, its not the quick pasta dish that it would be if I bought the store bought noodles, but its very yummy and much more affordable, making this recipe a winner for me.
One thing I especially like about this recipe is that the dough is very easy to work with; it doesn’t fall apart like some other gluten free pastas I’ve attempted to make. You don’t need a pasta maker to make this pasta- just your handy little rolling pin and a pizza cutter or knife.
I’ve included a gluten filled variation for those of you not on a gluten free diet- it’s even cheaper with wheat flour.
Ingredients:
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups gluten free all purpose flour mix (or regular wheat flour or whole wheat flour)
Approximately 1/4 cup water
Potato starch
OR
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca starch
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
Approximately 1/4 cup water
Potato starch for dusting
Salt and oil for cooking
Instructions:
1. Mix all the dry ingredients together.
2. Add the egg to the flour mixture and mix well.
3. Add a bit of water at a time until you get a workable dough. This should be approximately half a cup, more or less depending on the size of your egg and if you use gluten free flour or wheat flour. Wheat flour needs less water, a bit under 1/4 of a cup, and gluten free flour needs a bit over 1/4 of a cup. Add about a tablespoon of water at a time, to make sure that you aren’t adding more water than necessary.
4. Leave the dough to rest for about 15 minutes.
8. If you want shorter noodles, cut the pasta in the other direction as well.
9. Slide a spatula under the noodles, lift them up, and cook them in a pot of salted boiling water with some oil. Ideally roll out a bunch of noodles and throw them all in the pot at once so you don’t need to cook these in different batches. Once the noodles are in the pot, stir them to separate them so the starch doesn’t make them clump together, and stir occasionally throughout the cooking process.
