Homemade egg noodles with homemade spaghetti sauce.
Check out my post on What to do With Extra Eggs.
Homemade Egg Noodles
If you’ve never made your own egg noodles, you don’t know what you’re missing! I don’t make my own pasta very often, since it is pretty inexpensive at the store. However, since I’ve switched over to purchasing mostly organic food, I know I can save quite a bit by making more of our food from scratch.
I have plenty of fresh, organic eggs, bulk organic flour, and organic olive oil on hand, and making egg noodles is pretty quick and easy. It’s one more way to use up some of the extra eggs I have on hand, and I control what goes in them.
Make a well in your flour. I like to add dried basil and pepper to my noodle dough.
Egg Noodle Recipe
- 2 cups flour (I used organic whole wheat)
- 3 eggs (I used 2 large duck eggs)
- 1 Tbs olive oil
- 1 1/2 tsp water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- dried herbs and pepper (optional)
Measure flour out onto a clean counter or board. Make a well in the center and add salt, pepper, herbs, olive oil, eggs, and water to well.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the well in your flour.
Use your fingers to mix the ingredients together until well blended. You may need to add more flour or water, depending on the humidity levels. Dough should be not be sticky.
Combine the ingredients.
Knead dough and add a light dusting of flour if it is sticky. Knead until dough is smooth and elastic.
Knead the dough like you would bread dough.
Wrap in plastic and leave at room temperature for 10 to 45 minutes. Cut dough in half and roll each half out on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4″ thick.
Check out the rolling pin my Dad had made in an Amish shop for me!
Roll the dough up, jelly roll style, and use a sharp knife to cut into 1/2″ to 1″ wide strips.
Roll the dough and cut into strips.
Unroll the strips and hang to dry for half an hour or so before cooking. This will help prevent them from getting mushy.
Allow the noodles to dry for a half hour or so before cooking.
Drying Egg Noodles for Storing and Prepping
If you would like to dry the noodles for storage, make sure that they are completely dry before storing in an airtight container. Check them after a few hours to make sure that no moisture is forming on inside of container. If this happens, dry the noodles for a longer period of time, or they will get moldy. You can dry noodles near a wood stove or other source of heat, but make sure the temps don’t get too warm, or your noodles will dry on the outside while remaining moist inside. You can use a food dehydrator for drying them too!
To Cook Your Noodles
Add a pinch of salt and a few drops of olive oil to a pot of water, then bring water to a boil. Add noodles. Cook until noodles are tender, or they float to the top. Serve with tomato sauce, stir fried vegetables, or melted butter and garlic.
Do you make your own pasta? What are your favorite recipes for using egg noodles?
how long and at what temperature do you need to dry them for storage (roughly) in an electric oven? Thanks
Hi Liz,
I think that the best way to dry them in an electric oven would be to turn the oven on to it’s lowest setting for a few minutes, then turn it off. Put the noodles on a rack and place in the oven, leaving the door open about half way. Having the light on will also raise the temp, helping dry them out.
You don’t want the temp to be high enough that the noodles dry on the outside but stay damp inside.
The time that it takes will depend on a lot of variables, so I don’t want to give misleading information. The humidity in your house, the temp of the oven, and how thick you roll them out will all have an effect on the drying time. When they are dry enough to snap instead of bending, you should be able to store them in an air tight container for up to one month. You can also freeze them to store longer. If the container starts to get moisture forming inside it, take them out and dry them longer.
I hope this helps.
Back in 1970 my husbands Grandmother taught me to make home made noodles. She said one of the biggest things to remember is when making noodles the more you handle the dough, the better the noodles are. When making pie crust, the less you handle the dough the more tender the pie crust is. I have never forgot that.
Hi Carol,
How wonderful that your Grandma taught you to make noodles! I can definitely see what she meant about pie crust and noodles and handling the dough. I got impatient the last time and didn’t spend as much time needing the noodle dough. They started to fall apart in the pot when I cooked them. We still enjoyed them though. 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing your Gram’s wisdom with us!
When u roll out the dough is it a tough dough or a soft dough. Mine is always hard. When I cook the noodles I have to cook for a long time or they are tough.
Thanks for any tips.
Shirley
Hi Shirley,
The one complaint that I do have about this recipe is that the noodles are so soft that they can get a little mushy. So, no they are not tough.
Thanks for stopping by!
Got a pasta machine for Christmas from a friend. I look forward to making some. It sounds easy enough, right? 🙂
I hope you like the pasta machine, Rachel! My Mother in Law gave me one of the old fashioned pasta rollers, which I never could figure out. Now I just roll the dough out with a rolling pin. Much less taxing on my brain. 🙂 But I imagine that the new machines are much better than what I tried using!
This is the way my Grandmother made he noodles. Every time she culled an old hen from her flock, she would boil it for hours, Then take the meat off the bones and strain the broth and add the noodles and cook some more. Family and friends couldn’t wait for the next batch.
Sounds yummy! I have a culled hen all cooked up in my refrigerator right now. I need to pick the meat off and make some homemade chicken noodle soup…and egg noodles would be perfect for that!
Nothing beats homemade pasta. Nothing!:) somethin’ about it store bought can’t match!
So true! I need to make it more often and dry it for later. 🙂
Homemade pasta are delicious!
Hi Regula…I love them too!
My husband enjoys making pasta when he has the time – it is too much for me to do while the little babe is under foot and I am home by myself – need the hands clean for grabbing her from the top of the sofa! Last weekend we had some leftover butternut squash puree in the fridge and some ricotta (unfortunately not homemade – yet!) and so he made raviolis filled with butternut squash, ricotta, and nutmeg. We ate them with melted butter and then also with some pesto throughout the week, since we froze a bunch. Just finished the last batch last night, along with some homemade bread. It feels great to be eating an entire meal that we made from scratch.
Hi Katie,
Yes, when my son was little I didn’t have time to get very many homemade meals ready…until nap time. 🙂 The ravioli sounds super yummy! I haven’t tried making it with squash before, but I bet it was wonderful!
I know what you mean about eating a meal that is all home made…I love the summer time when we have one of our chickens with homegrown veggies fresh from the garden!
Thanks for sharing the ravioli idea…gotta try that. 🙂
My husband reminded me that his “secret ingredient” in the ravioli was chopped up fresh sage. It is the one thing we have to harvest from our garden right now.