How to Make Fresh Kale Pasta at Home (recipe)

I’m totally one of those people that finds “weekend (or weeknight) cooking projects” to be deeply satisfying (yes, I know, food need alert!) and making homemade pasta is one of those things for me. Call me cheap, but when I see fresh pasta being sold for $15.99 per pound (darn, these New York City prices!), I remind myself that I can do the same thing at home for 3 eggs, a couple cups of flour and some elbow grease–so what the heck am I still standing in the store for, I gotta get home and get started!

And that’s how this kale pasta recipe happened. In all honesty, I was already set on making fresh pasta and had some kale just lying around in the fridge and thought, why not throw it in the pasta? As I like the pretty pattern the green kale makes when swirled with the yellow egg pasta, I only roughly blended it into the eggs, but if you want more of a uniform color, by all means, go ahead and puree the shiz out of the blanched kale before proceeding.

FRESH KALE PASTA

Ingredients:
2 Cups Flour (plus a lil’ more for rolling out the dough)
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 – 1 Bunch Tuscan/Lacinato Kale (I’m sure you could use green kale too, but I had Tuscan in my fridge)
3 Eggs
1/2 Teaspoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Freshly Ground Pepper

Directions:

1. Blanch the kale:
Heat a pot of water to boiling on high. In the meantime, remove and discard the stems of the kale, keeping the leafy greens. Once the water is boiling, cook the kale leaves for 2 to 3 minutes, or until tender. Drain and run the cooked kale under cold water to stop the cooking process. Using your hands (and maybe some paper towels), press out as much water as possible from the kale, then roughly chop (if you’re using a blender later) or finely chop (if not).

2. Combine the kale and eggs:
If using a blender, combine the eggs, olive oil, as much freshly ground black pepper as you’d like and the chopped kale until smooth. If you’re not using a blender, just combine everything in a bowl. (Personally, I like the combination of the bitter kale with the zesty kick from the pepper, so I used a lot of black pepper here. Yum!)

3. Make the pasta dough:
In a large bowl or on a clean work sufrace, combine the flour and salt. Make a small well in the middle (the steeper the sides the better) and pour the egg-kale mixture in. Then, using your hands, gradually incorporate the flour by pulling from the sides and into the well. As you incorporate more flour, a dough will form. (If you find the dough to be too dry, add a little water. Too dry? Add a little more flour. It’s not a perfect science, but just “listen” to the dough and give it what it needs.)

4. Knead the dough:
Knead the dough until it’s smooth and elastic, then cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 to 20 minutes. (I like to take this time to reset [ie. clean up my previous mess & pull out my pasta machine], oh and crack open a bottle of wine–that is, if I haven’t already done so…I mean, you have to have wine with pasta, right? I studied abroad in Italy and we had wine with every meal sans colazione.)

5. Roll out the pasta:
Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces. Then, working with each piece one at a time, flour it throughly and press it out with your hands until it’s about 1/2-inch thick and no wider than your pasta machine. Then crank that bad boy through your machine, gradually turning the slot down to make it thinner and thinner with each pass. (Since the dough will get sticky as it gets thinner, make sure you have extra flour on hand. You don’t want this beautiful dough getting stuck all up in your machine.) Once your pasta is at your desired thinness, cut into whatever width you like–say fettuccine- or paperadelle-width or leave it super wide for lasagna. You’re grown, I’ll let you choose.

6. Cook the pasta:
To cook the pasta, heat a large pot of salted water to boiling and drop the pasta in. Give it a good stir and cook it for 3 to 5 minutes, or until it floats near the top. Then drain and throw it into your favorite sauce. Buon appetito!

7. Freeze the pasta:
Whenever I make fresh pasta, I always end up with leftovers, which I ain’t mad at because they’re great to have on hand for a busy weeknight. To freeze the pasta, shape it into a nice, rounded circle or basket and generously flour. Place in an airtight container and freeze for up to 3 months. Whenever you’re ready to cook it, carefully and gently (you don’t want the fragile noodles to break), drop the pasta into boiling water and cook. (Frozen pasta usually needs an extra minute to cook.)

And that’s that. I threw this particular pasta into a delicious bolognese sauce, but I’ll post that another time. Hope you enjoy!

Anyone tried any other cool pasta flavor variations?

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