Video: Lasagne with Fresh Homemade Pasta Dough

fresh home-made lasagnaWhen one of my children asked whether making fresh lasagna is worth the effort. I pointed out that cooking up lasagna noodles also takes time and energy. Pre-cooked noodles are quite expensive and don’t have the same texture. If you don’t find rolling out dough a chore, try this easy recipe for gourmet results (unappreciated by the child in question).

The recipe is from Norene Gilletz’s Pleasures of Your Food Processor.

I used fine 90% whole-wheat, which means that 10% of the fibers have been sifted out. If you have coarse whole-wheat flour, blend it with white, especially if you don’t have experience with rolling.
The recipe may be doubled.
Ingredients:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

  1. Place all ingredients in food processor bowl, but reserve some of the water.
  2. Mix until the dough forms a ball. If it’s crumbly you’ll need to add a little more water.
  3. Place dough in a covered container or wrap in plastic to rest for 15 minutes at room temperature.
  4. Divide into four pieces and roll to fit the shape of a deep baking pan. The dough should be less than 1/4 inch thick, but roll it as thin as you feel comfortable with.

In this video you can see how we rolled out the dough and assembled the lasagna. The cheese layer is 500 grams of soft white cheese mixed with an egg and a teaspoon of thyme. You may remember the recipe for marinara sauce made in the pressure cooker.

homemade noodles drying on a clothNo need to cook the noodles after rolling them out. Try to roll them out to match the size of your pan, keeping in mind that the dough is stretchy. Ours ended up too big, so we cut off the edges and cut them into broad noodles. I let them dry enough so that they wouldn’t stick, and stored them in the refrigerator to cook the next day.

You’ve noticed I’ve skipped grated cheese, but feel free to add it if you like.

The lasagna should bake for 30-40 minutes, until it is firm in the center and the upper edges are crisp.

Comments

  1. I agree that nothing beats homemade pasta, including lasagne noodles. We even have a machine for rolling pasta thin.

    Having said that, if you don’t have time to make your own, you can buy regular lasagne noodles and there is no need to precook them, even if it says on the package that you do. The trick is to make sure that the noodles are completely covered by the sauce and then they cook fine together wih the lasagne.

  2. Yes, Sue, I’ve done that. I guess I don’t buy the noodles because they are still pretty hard to find.