Homemade Spinach Pasta Dough

Homemade Spinach Pasta Dough

The Spruce / Cara Cormack

Prep: 50 mins
Cook: 3 mins
Resting Time: 20 mins
Total: 73 mins
Servings: 4 to 6 servings

Making homemade pasta can be a fun and rewarding project and is so much better than store-bought. This homemade spinach pasta dough is made with four ingredients—spinach, eggs, flour, and salt—and while the recipe uses frozen spinach, fresh can also be used as explained in the tips below. 

Making pasta from scratch also allows you to mix in other ingredients, contributing additional flavors. The addition of pureed spinach offers a mild taste and turns the pasta dough a brilliant green. It also gives the pasta a boost of vitamins and minerals.

Spinach pasta dough can be made into spaghetti, lasagna, or ravioli, and once cooked is delicious topped with sauces including chanterelle mushrooms, black olives, and sun-dried tomatoes.

"A great recipe to level up your regular homemade pasta dough. It tastes amazing with any pasta sauce, especially tomato sauce, and this recipe can serve the whole family. I just wouldn’t recommend attempting this recipe without a pasta machine unless you’re experienced with rolling and cutting the dough by hand." —Tara Omidvar

Homemade Spinach Pasta Dough Tester Image
A Note From Our Recipe Tester

Ingredients

  • 1 (10-ounce) package frozen spinach, thawed and chopped

  • 5 large eggs

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus additional flour as needed

  • 1 teaspoon salt

Steps to Make It

  1. Gather the ingredients.

    Homemade Spinach Pasta Dough ingredients

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  2. Squeeze as much water as possible from the chopped spinach with your hands or by pressing with a wooden spoon in a colander.

    frozen spinach in a colander, pressed with spoon

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  3. In a blender or food processor, combine the spinach and eggs.

    spinach and eggs in a food processor

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  4. Puree until the mixture is dark green and smooth, with few or no visible chunks of spinach showing.

    spinach and egg mixture in a food processor

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  5. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt, stirring with a fork or a whisk to combine.

    flour and salt in a bowl

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  6. On a large, lightly floured work surface (like a countertop covered with a silicone pastry mat), pour the flour mixture into a mound and make a well in the center.

    flour mound with well, on a cutting board

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  7. Pour the spinach-egg mixture into the well.

    spinach mixture on top of flour

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  8. Using a fork, stir the spinach mixture in a circular motion, gradually incorporating more and more flour.

    mix flour with the spinach mixture

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  9. As the mixture turns chunky, begin to knead it, incorporating enough flour to make a stiff dough. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, adding more flour until the dough is smooth and slightly tacky but not sticky.

    knead spinach dough

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  10. Set aside, covered with plastic wrap, for about 20 minutes.

    spinach dough ball wrapped in plastic wrap

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  11. Assemble your pasta maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

    pasta roller, pasta maker

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  12. Divide the dough into 4 to 6 equal sections with a knife or a dough cutter.

    spinach pasta dough divided into six pieces

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  13. Cover all of the pieces—except the one you're working with—with a clean dishtowel or plastic wrap.

    pasta dough piece on a cutting board, past dough pieces covered with a towel

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  14. Form the piece of dough into a flat rectangle with your hands or a rolling pin to prepare it to be fed into the pasta maker.

    roll out a piece of pasts dough

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  15. Beginning with one of the shorter sides of the rectangle, feed the pasta through the pasta maker on the first (widest) setting.

    spinach pasta dough in the pasta maker, rolling out pasta dough with pasta machine

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  16. Then fold it in thirds (like a business letter).

    folded sheet of pasta dough

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  17. Feed it through the pasta rollers again.

    spinach pasta dough in the pasta machine

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  18. Repeat the folding and rolling steps several times on the widest setting, before rolling pasta at increasingly smaller settings until it reaches the desired thinness.

    spinach pasta dough rolled out with a pasta machine

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

  19. Use the sheets of pasta as-is for lasagna, form into ravioli, or cut into noodles using a pasta machine attachment.

    Homemade Spinach Pasta Dough sliced into pieces with a pasta maker

    The Spruce / Cara Cormack

Tips

  • This recipe calls for frozen spinach, but if you choose to use fresh greens, you need to quickly cook them first. Place 1 pound of fresh spinach in a skillet and cook until it turns bright green, about 30 seconds. Then immediately plunge it into an ice bath to stop the cooking. Squeeze out the liquid as instructed in the recipe.
  • This dough can be stickier and more fragile than regular flour-based pasta dough, so you might not want to roll it as thin as you would normally roll the pasta dough.
  • When kneading the dough, you might have to add a bit more flour depending on variables like the weather and how much liquid you squeezed out from the spinach. Go by the feel of the dough—it should be slightly tacky, but not sticky or wet.

How to Use Spinach Pasta Dough

Cook the finished pasta in boiling, salted water, for about 3 minutes, or until al dente.


Nutrition Facts (per serving)
379 Calories
5g Fat
66g Carbs
16g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 4 to 6
Amount per serving
Calories 379
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 5g 7%
Saturated Fat 2g 8%
Cholesterol 155mg 52%
Sodium 459mg 20%
Total Carbohydrate 66g 24%
Dietary Fiber 4g 14%
Total Sugars 1g
Protein 16g
Vitamin C 1mg 5%
Calcium 108mg 8%
Iron 6mg 31%
Potassium 289mg 6%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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