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Regional Italian Pastas

Take a gastronomic tour of Italy as you learn to make fresh egg pasta and cook iconic regional dishes.

Regional Italian Pastas

About this Class

In this class you’ll learn about some of Italy's famous pastas from Emilia-Romagna, Trentino-Alto Adige, and Rome. First, you'll learn to make a simple egg pasta dough that comes together quickly in the food processor and yields noodles that are chewy yet supple. We’ll walk through how to roll out and cut your fresh dough, both using a pasta machine and by hand, and how to store, fill, shape, cook, and sauce those noodles to make classic Italian dishes with mezzelune and tortellini. You’ll also learn to make the famous Roman dish, cacio e pepe, and read about its star ingredient—Pecorino Romano—along with our other favorite Italian cheeses to pair with pasta.

Meet Your Instructors

Author: Christie Morrison

Christie Morrison

Editorial Director, Classes

Christie Morrison is Editorial Director, Classes and an on-screen test cook for Cook’s Country. As editorial director, she creates the curriculum for ATK Classes and is executive producer for Classes video content. She has been a cooking class instructor since 2016. As a senior editor for Cook’s Country magazine from 2013 to 2016 and an associate editor on the Books team prior to that, she developed, tested, and edited recipes. Christie was also a culinary producer for Cook’s Country for the 2015 and 2016 seasons. Christie has a BA in English from Dickinson College and an MA in English from Bucknell University. A midcareer change brought her to Boston, where she received her culinary diploma from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts (CSCA). In addition to teaching professional and recreational cooking classes at CSCA, Christie has worked in restaurants and catering kitchens in Boston.

Author: Sam Block

Sam Block

Digital Test Cook

Samantha Block is ATK's digital test cook as well as an on-screen test cook for America’s Test Kitchen. A graduate of Johnson & Wales University’s culinary program, she spent years cooking professionally, including a worldwide adventure on cruise ships. After developing recipes for some of ATK’s most successful cookbooks, she now finds herself teaching ATK Classes and producing video content showcasing ATK’s integrity (in her own quirky way).

Lessons

Class Progress

1A Taste of Italy

Italian Cheeses to Know

Italian Cheeses to Know

Culinary Tour: Three Regions of Italy

Culinary Tour: Three Regions of Italy

2Making Fresh Egg Pasta

Equipment for Making Fresh Pasta

Equipment for Making Fresh Pasta

Fresh Egg Pasta

Recipe2 hr 30 min

Fresh Egg Pasta

Fresh Pasta FAQs

Fresh Pasta FAQs

3Putting Your Pasta Dough to Work

Half Moon Stuffed Pasta with Spinach and Ricotta

Half Moon Stuffed Pasta with Spinach and Ricotta

Tortellini in Brodo

Recipe1 hr 30 min

Tortellini in Brodo

Cacio e Pepe (Spaghetti with Pecorino Romano and Black Pepper)

Cacio e Pepe (Spaghetti with Pecorino Romano and Black Pepper)

Ask ATK

Have a Question?

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Class FAQs

Do I need a special kind of flour for fresh pasta?

Author: Christie

Answered by Christie

Editorial Director, Classes

Nope! Our fresh pasta dough calls for good old all-purpose flour. You may see recipes out there that call for “00” flour, or Italian-style flour, which has a superfine, powdery texture and produces pizza and breads with a soft, delicate crumb, and while we tested our pasta recipes with it, we didn’t find that it turned out a better product. The protein content of 00 flour can vary, but in general it’s lower than all-purpose and bread flours, meaning the dough it’s used in will absorb less liquid; if you substitute 00 flour in a recipe that calls for all-purpose flour you’ll need to add about 20 percent less water.

Can I make fresh pasta ahead of time?

Author: Carolynn

Answered by Carolynn

Instructor, ATK Classes

You can, with a few caveats. For stuffed pastas you want to let them sit uncovered on a sheet pan at room temperature until dry and slightly stiff, then wrap the pan in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to four hours. You can also transfer the sheet pan to the freezer and chill until firm, then transfer them to a zipper-lock bag and back to the freezer. Strand pasta, however, can begin to clump if refrigerated for too long before cooking, but you can freeze it in much the same way as the stuffed pasta: toss the noodles with flour to prevent sticking, nestle into a zipper-lock bag, and freeze for up to four weeks. No need to thaw before cooking—just add it right to the boiling water.

Do I need a pasta machine to make fresh pasta?

Author: Sarah

Answered by Sarah

Instructor, ATK Classes

While a pasta machine, whether a stand-mixer attachment or a manual hand-crank version, certainly makes homemade pasta a less laborious project, it is by no means a necessity. You can roll out pasta dough using a heavy rolling pin (and a bit of elbow grease) as we outline here, and you can cut pasta with a sharp knife and a few simple steps, as we do in the recipe lesson for Fresh Egg Pasta in this class.

How long should I cook fresh pasta?

Author: Christie

Answered by Christie

Editorial Director, Classes

Fresh pasta takes minutes to cook—as little as one to two minutes. Bring four quarts of water to a boil in a big pot, just like you would for dried pasta, and season it with a tablespoon of table salt. Don’t add your pasta to the water until the sauce and other components of the dish are ready. Test the pasta early, and remove the pot from the heat as soon as it’s al dente, or “to the tooth.” It should be tender with a bit of chew, and remember it will soften further as it’s tossed with the sauce.