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This homemade whole wheat pasta recipe takes a little time to make, but it’s well worth the effort for delicious fresh pasta! Sure, you can buy good quality dried pasta from the store and it works just fine, but the taste (and pride) of homemade pasta is just too good to pass up.
Why we love this recipe
Homemade pasta is one of those food projects that is never necessary, but that is always satisfying. We enjoy making this homemade whole wheat pasta recipe, which is a 50-50 whole wheat/white flour mix. The wheat flour adds a little heartiness and some extra nutritional value to pasta night!
Once you get good at making pasta, it’s surprisingly quick and can be made with items you probably have on hand. So next time you want to eat some pasta, give yourself a little extra time and try making it from scratch. Keep reading for our homemade whole wheat pasta recipe!
Making whole wheat pasta dough
Making homemade whole wheat pasta is a fairly straightforward process, but you’ll need some patience the first time you make it. The first step is the easiest: add all the ingredients to a stand mixer and knead for about 5 minutes until a ball forms.
At this stage, the dough should stick together and shouldn’t be too wet. Then, knead the dough briefly before letting it rest on your counter for 30 minutes. Remember that we’re not making bread, so the pasta dough doesn’t require a lot of kneading!).
Tips for forming the noodles
Once the pasta has rested, it’s time to begin the most important part of the pasta making process: the rolling of the dough. Although you can roll out the dough using a rolling pin, a pasta machine makes everything much easier. We used the pasta maker attachment for our KitchenAid mixer.
Start running the dough through the rollers at their widest setting. You’ll need to continually fold the dough in half and keep running it through the machine to gradually flatten it out. As you continue rolling the dough, you’ll want to adjust the pasta machine so the dough is slowly rolled out thinner and thinner.
Once the dough is at the desired thickness, cut the dough into sections (the length of each section will determine how long each noodle is). Run each section through the die-cut side of the pasta machine, and bask in the glory of your homemade whole wheat pasta!
When you’re ready to taste this homemade whole wheat pasta recipe, simply drop the pasta into boiling water for 2 minutes, top with your preferred sauce, and tuck in.
Ways to serve whole wheat pasta
Once you’ve made this delicious whole wheat pasta recipe, there are so many fun pasta recipes and sauces to serve with it. Try is with:
- Red sauce, like this Marinara Sauce, Tomato Cream Sauce or Pomodoro Sauce
- White sauce, like this Cream Sauce or Vegan Alfredo Sauce
- Pesto, like Basil Pesto
- Wine sauce, like this White Wine Sauce
- Puttanesca sauce, like this Pasta Puttanesca Recipe
More vegetarian pasta recipes
Outside of this homemade whole wheat pasta recipe, here are some of our favorite vegetarian pasta recipes:
- Pasta Pomodoro
- Creamy Gemelli Pasta or Creamy Spinach Pasta
- Lemon Ricotta Pasta
- Sun Dried Tomato Pasta
- Broccoli Mac and Cheese or Cottage Cheese Mac and Cheese
- Mushroom Pasta with Parmesan
- Easy Stuffed Shells
- Easy Manicotti
Dietary notes
This homemade whole wheat pasta recipe is vegetarian.
Homemade Whole Wheat Pasta Recipe
This homemade whole wheat pasta recipe takes a little time to make, but it’s well worth the effort for delicious fresh pasta!
- Prep Time: 60 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 4 minutes
- Yield: 12 ounces (serves about 6) 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 cup white flour
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ tablespoon olive oil
- 3 eggs
Instructions
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the whole wheat flour, white flour, and kosher salt and stir loosely to combine. Add the olive oil and eggs and stir until a loose dough forms.
- Attach the dough hook to your stand mixer and knead the dough on low speed for 5-6 minutes until a smooth ball forms. You may need to stop the mixer once or twice to make sure all of the flour gets incorporated into the dough. Note: The dough can also be kneaded by hand for 5 minutes.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it into a smooth, dense ball. Cover the dough with a towel and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Roll the dough out using a pasta machine, or by hand with a rolling pin. To roll the dough with a pasta machine, take about ¼ of the dough (smaller amounts are easier to work with) and flatten it with your hand. Run it through the pasta rollers at the widest setting. Fold the dough in half and run it through again at the same setting. Repeat this until the pasta runs through smoothly (around 4 times). If the pasta becomes sticky at any point, sprinkle a small amount of flour on the sheet of dough and rub it in.
- Narrow the rollers one notch and run the pasta through the rollers; fold it in half and run it through again at the same setting. Keep narrowing the rollers one notch at a time and running the dough through once or twice. For the narrower settings, you don’t need to fold the dough in half if it runs through smoothly.
- When you get to the desired thickness (we like the third from the most thin on our rollers), lay each sheet out flat and sprinkle a fair amount of flour onto both sides. Slice the sheet into the length of noodles you want, then roll or fold each piece (see the photos). Then slice the pasta into noodles by cutting the desired width. Use your fingers to separate each noodle. Sprinkle with more flour to make sure the noodles don’t stick.
- Let the pasta rest for about 15 minutes before boiling it (this allows it to dry out a bit).
- When ready to serve, pick up noodles and shake off excess flour. Drop the pasta in salted boiling water and cook for about 2 minutes until tender.
Notes
Note: Don’t wash the pasta machine with soap and water. Wait for the pasta to dry and then wipe it with a towel and try to get all of the little bits out. We usually shake it around upside down, run the rollers backwards, and poke at it with a chopstick!
I don’t have a web site I am a home cook taught by My Chef Mom who was from Italy and cooked here in America, she was also Home Taught but was wonderful and worked in many wonderful Restaurants in her time. She has passed now and I have no one to go to. So I want to make a 100% whole wheat Pasta because I have Cardiac disease now and have been told no Pasta because of white flour mostly; I know Chick peas and and other veggies but they use white flour, can I substitute whole wheat? I am being Lazy I don’t want to do all the experiment’s myself. Gnocchi is not a problem I have made many substitutes like sweet potatoes, yogurt, ricotta.
Great question! 100% whole wheat pasta has a bit of an odd dense texture, so you’ll find most recipes for it have half whole wheat and half all-purpose. We’d recommend looking for legume pasta at the store, like chickpea or lentil pasta. It’s not quite the same, but many brands on the market have decent options.
Have you tried this with sprouted wheat flour? I have been sprouting my wheat flour then dehydrating it. It does cut down on the gluten, so I imagine with the regular flour it should be ok.
We haven’t tried it, sorry!
Can you add semolina flour to this recipe?
This should work but we haven’t tested it!
Hi, I would like to make some pasta and then use it in a day or two as I don’t have time to do it all on the same day. Can I just let it dry, then cook it gently when I want to use it? I want to make lazagne and cannelloni. Do I cook the pasta before rolling the cannelloni filling in?
I have made spagetti etc before. I am also going to be making whole wheat pasta.
Many thanks
Caeleen
This is a great, yet simple recipe. I love it. I have used it several times now. I must confess that I have added a little bit of cold water as it seems to make the pasta a little easier to work with.
Although it does take a little longer than to make the pasta from scratch rather than opening up a package, it is well worth the time. But having said that, now that I have made it a few times, I can whip up a double batch in about an hour using my manual pasta roller/cutter. This feeds my family of 4 for two meals. I cook half of it fresh, and hang the other half on a wooden dowel to dry, then store in an airtight container. I like to use it up within a month or so.
Bon Apetit to everyone
Just a side note… I have found some whole wheat flour is a bit coarse, so I put it in my food processor and ‘mill’ it to a bit finer texture. Just my experience.. Hope the tip helps.
This is wonderful! So glad to hear that the recipe works well for you. And thanks for the tip on milling the flour to finer texture – we’ll have to try it out!
I had the problem with my pasta machine when I first got it (30 years ago ugh) but I kept on using it and it cuts beautifully now. One thing I did was lightly oil the rollers with olive oil. It started to cut much better. Now I love my cutter and us it all the time. I use it for rolling out proghy (sp) dough too.
Hope the oiling hint helps.
Your pics are great. We’d love for you to post your pics/recipes at dishfolio.com!
Mmmmm, I love making my own pasta! I’ve been wanting to try adding whole wheat though but I was a little scared. I roll it out by hand as well so I was a bit nervous because I thought it would be harder. I’m going to go take a look at the pasta roller you recommended, I’ve been looking for a while but never know what to buy. Thank you! I know buying one will be so worth it :)
Marcato atlas is a good pasta maker
Oooohhhhh, I love this. Makes me want to run out and get a pasta machine PRONTO! Thanks for posting- I’ll be back fo sho! ;)
Homemade pasta is the best and it is fun to do.
I love making homemade pasta. I enjoy rolling it by hand and cutting it myself though would be interested in purchasing a pasta machine. Can you please share which one you own and your opinion of it. Thank you kindly!
Mine is completely unmarked, but I think that it is this one from Weston. I like it ok. It gets the job done! It’s not the most sturdy machine and it sometimes seems easier to have one person rolling and one person holding the dough. Also, it is a little difficult finding somewhere to clamp it.
That being said, I like it well enough. I’ve heard great things about the KitchenAid Attachment, but no need to upgrade when this little guy works just fine (and it includes the fettucini and spaghetti cutters).
look for a pasta maker made in italy on ebay side you can find many and good price
Thank you for this pasta recipe. It looks very well done!
this is very similar to what i’ve been doing, thanks for the tips on using the machine! i think my machine is kinda crappy since it doesn’t cut the pasta strips all the way through. they’re still connected which adds a ton of extra time pulling them apart. is this just my machine sucking or is there a way to correct this? also, it says to never use water or soap to clean the thing (presumably it will rust or seize up) so how the heck do i get all the bits out? is it normal to have bits of dough stuck in the machine when you’re done?
Thanks for the reminder. I added a little blurb about cleaning on the instructions. It is normal to have little bits of dough. I run the rollers backwards, shake it out, and then just poke at it until I get all of the chunks out… :)
Also – try rubbing in a little extra flour before running the dough through the cutter. It seems to help it separate.
If your pasta is not cutting well, it often means that the dough is too wet. Try adding a bit less water, or letting the sheets dry out a bit before you run them through the spaghettiator
It helps to allow those little bits to dry completely. Next time you take your machine out, cut a tiny bit of dough and run it through all of the rollers. The dry bits will stick to the moist dough. Toss that first piece and you are all set!