What’s the Best Flour to Use for Homemade Pasta? | America's Test Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What’s the Best Flour to Use for Homemade Pasta? | America's Test Kitchen? ›

However, we created our Fresh Egg Pasta dough recipe with readily available all-purpose flour. Our go-to in the test kitchen is Gold Medal Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, which has a moderate protein content. You can also successfully use a high-protein all-purpose flour, such as King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour.

Pasta dough also needs some plasticity for it to be moulded into all of those wonderful shapes. All-purpose flour does what it says on the tin, so it's perfectly fine to use for making pasta. However, most pasta recipes will recommend either semola or “00” flour.

Semola and semolina flour are mainly used for making pasta, couscous, and some rustic cakes. Semolina has a coarse texture similar to polenta, while semola is flour. You might use semolina to make a breakfast porridge or sweet pudding, or under your pizza dough to keep it from sticking.

The semolina flour adds a bit more structure to the dough, which is helpful for shapes like garganelli or farfalle where you want the pasta to “stand up.” You could replace the semolina flour with equal parts 00 flour for a more tender and soft dough, which could be good for something like tagliatelle.

You can also make pasta with plain or plain strong flour, but it will be harder to work with. Self-raising flour shouldn't be used to make pasta as it puffs up when cooked. See our guide for how to make pasta for more info on pasta shapes and ingredients.

Besides the level of the grind, the other big difference between “00” flour and all-purpose flour is how the gluten in each flour behaves. The gluten from durum wheat flour tends to be strong but not very elastic, while the gluten in red wheat flour is both strong and elastic.

Type 00 Flour (sometimes called Doppio Zero)

Type 00 flour is the quintessential Italian flour synonymous with quality. It's extra refined, very soft, and stark white in color because it contains none of the wheat bran.

So why is durum semolina so prized for pasta making? A few reasons, the main one being that the gluten in durum semolina is strong but not particularly elastic. Pasta made from this type of flour will keep its shape and the prized “al dente” texture after cooking.

This hard-wheat flour has grown in Italy's warm and sunny south for centuries. As a result, the pasta traditions of the southern and central Italian regions are mainly based semolina flour.

Why use 00 flour? Because 00 flour is so fine, it makes a finer, more responsive dough that won't tear when you roll it into thin, delicate pasta strips or shape it into a crispy pizza base.

What do eggs do in pasta? ›

When the flour is kneaded with moisture (from the eggs), the protein forms strands of gluten that give the pasta its structure and strength. As well as providing water for the gluten, eggs also give fat, which enriches the dough, giving it a smooth, silky finish.

Rest. Place the dough in a small bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes at room temperature or up to overnight in the fridge – this is an extremely important step, so don't skip it!

Luckily, pasta dough is a forgiving recipe, so you can overcome too much flour with an easy addition of water. Simply add a spoonful of water, and you'll soften your pasta mixture into an ideal consistency.

Semolina Flour

Semolina's coarse texture makes chewy, hearty pasta that rolls easily through a pasta machine; it also gives the noodles a slightly coarser texture on the exterior so sauce clings better.

Semolina vs All Purpose Flour

In addition to its golden hue, semolina flour has a nutty flavor and more protein than all-purpose flour. Its gluten protein content creates an elastic dough, perfect for kneading and stretching for pasta. In contrast, neutrality defines all-purpose flour.

To make pasta properly the flour must have at least 12 percent protein content to guarantee true al dente. We can mix in semolina to give the pasta dough the proper content, with the only really noticeable difference being the ash content.

Too much flour makes the pasta tough. Not enough will result in runny lumps that are impossible to roll through pasta maker.