Spinach Pasta Dough

Step 1

Make sure you are using washed and ready to eat baby spinach. If you are using mature spinach leaves you'll need to cut off any large stalks.

Step 2

Put the flour in a food processor then add the spinach Blitz the flour and spinach for a few minutes, you'll notice it turns powdery then starts to come together more. It'll take a couple of minutes.

Step 3

Stop the food processor and feel the dough, if it feels soft and sticks together it's ready but if it's too dry add a little more spinach and blitz again.

Step 4

Tip the dough onto a clean work surface and bring together. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes it may feel quite stiff at first but it will turn smooth and elastic the more you knead it.

Step 5

Cover it in plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes. This is a really important step and allows the gluten to relax making your dough more pliable and easier to work with.

Step 6

Once ready, cut the dough in half and squash it to fit into the widest setting of your pasta machine. Make sure to dust in semola or flour so it doesn't stick.

Step 7

Pass it through the widest setting once then fold one edge to the middle and the second edge over that so it overlaps. Pass it through the widest setting then repeat the process 4 times.

Step 8

You can now pass it through 1 higher setting at a time and create whatever pasta shape you'd like. For tagliatelle I tend to stop at number 5 on my Marcato Atlas machine but do what you prefer.