How to Make Basic Sourdough Pasta Dough

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This is a delicious Basic Pasta Dough recipe, with all the benefits of sourdough and fermentation. This recipe is fool-proof and makes a large quantity of delicious, silky pasta.

I found this recipe years ago from I am Homesteader, and it has served my table for many a year. I have not needed to change or adapt the recipe, because it makes perfect pasta, every time! The only times I have had to alter the recipe is when we ran out of eggs, but strangely had a carton of pure egg whites in the fridge. The pasta was actually pretty good, even without the richness of the egg yolks!

The thing to love about this recipe is two-fold: One, it is a great use for your sourdough discard. The recipe uses about 1/2 a cup, which is a decent chunk of discard, and will set your starter up for a good feeding.

Two, the longer rest time (allowed by the sourdough discard) breaks down the anti-nutrients in the flour, making the pasta better for you and easier to digest.

The bonus is that it uses not a lot of ingredients to make a massive meal-filler, which makes it an incredibly frugal recipe. I make it all the time, and it is what allows me to stick to my $100 grocery budget.

How to Make a Meal with Virtually no Ingredients: Bottom of the Barrel Cooking.

The Italian cuisine is born out of poverty, which is an idea that I LOVE. The idea that in a setting of scarcity, you can have a delicious and nourishing meal. This is very, very clever cooking.

Pasta dishes are therefore designed to make a very little go a long way. 

Meat, riddled through pasta, will go for miles.

Knowing how to make pasta DOUGH is one step better in combatting poverty. It means you need never to starve. When you don’t even have pasta in your cupboard, this recipe will help you to produce a nourishing meal.

As long as you have flour and a couple of eggs, you can make a robust and yummy meal that your family will love.

I pull it out when I am scraping the bottom of the barrel and just need a meal! 

Sourdough Pasta Dough is next-level pasta dough. It is an excellent way to use up sourdough discard, plus it is more nutritious and easier to digest than standard pasta dough. It uses less eggs, because these are replaced by the discard.

So it is also better for your budget!

The Simplicity of Pasta: perfect for Frugal Living

Flavour the pasta with salt, garlic, butter and some fresh or dried herbs and you have a wonderful meal – no one needs to know you were tearing your hair out at 5pm.  Plus, the kids LOVE it.

I have flavoured the dough with paprika, or cumin or various herbs.  I do not salt it, because it gets salted when you boil it in the salty water.

It is a great way to use up Sourdough discard.  The dough gets all the benefits of the sourdough starter, and if you leave it to rest for a minimum time of 7 hours, you get the benefits of fermentation.

The long fermentation time isn’t absolutely necessary, though. If you are in a time-pinch, you only have to leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes, minimum.

How to make Pasta: Timeline of Sourdough Pasta Dough

I like to make the dough at the beginning of the day, and leave it to rest until I am ready to cook in the evening. 

This rest time allows the phytates in the flour to breakdown so the pasta is easier for your tummy to digest.

Plus it means you can go about your day and get other chores out of the way. Rolling pasta dough is quite involved, and I find I get stressed out doing it if I know there are lots of other things to be done.

A note about Pasta Machines

To make pasta, you TECHNICALLY do not even need a pasta machine. I used an old wine bottle for my first year of making pasta (talk about rustic!)

In saying that, a pasta machine makes the whole procvess a lot easier and the pasta turns out WAY better. My hubby gifted me this Pasta Machine for Christmas one year, and it changed the whole Pasta – making game for me!

If you are going to go the route of the pasta machine, make sure it is a good one. Chances are, it is going to last you till your dying day, and it needs to be able to withstand the constant pressure of rolling dough.

It is surprising how easily the crappy ones can break.

I have linked the pasta machine that I use, which is REALLY GOOD, strong and still shiny after 2 years!

If you purchase through this link, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

But, if you don’t think you are going to make pasta that often, completely unnecessary!

How to Cook Pasta:

Roll pasta dough according to your machine instructions.

For Spaghetti:

Cut into spaghetti noodles.

Boil for 3-5 mins in salted, already-boiling water.

With a slotted spoon, ladle the noodles directly into the pasta sauce. Don’t worry about the drips – that will help to loosen the pasta sauce.

The starchy salty pasta water will also help to thicken and season the sauce.

For Easy Lasagna:

Instead of cutting the pasta into spaghetti or fettuccine, keep the pasta sheets and layer them with bolognaise sauce and cream cheese, and grated cheese.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes.

For Ravioli or Tortellini:

Roll the pasta dough according to pasta machine instructions.

At level four thickness, lay the sheets onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 4cm squares.

Fill with about 1/2 a teaspoon of desired filling (I used bolognaise and a tiny amount of cream cheese, which was YUM), and seal it off.

Boil for 3-4 minutes in salty water.

Toss in your favourite pesto or butter sauce.