Homemade Tri-Color Pasta is colored with vegetable juices. Tomato, spinach, and beets give the pasta its beautiful hues. This pasta is as delicious as it is beautiful, a great way to brighten up a meal and add some extra nutrition.
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Spoiler Alert: The homemade tri-color pasta is beautiful to look at. However, the flavor of the pasta is unchanged. To flavor the pasta, you would have to add artificial flavor. Not so good, in my opinion. I love the beautiful colors the vegetable juice gives the pasta. Interestingly enough, the orange pasta isn’t carrots; it is tomato paste. I know, kind of weird. If you aren’t into colored pasta, you can make the pasta its natural color. Have fun experimenting with different vegetables. How about roasted red peppers or pumpkin.? Purple sweet potato puree might be interesting.
Make the Vegetable Juice for the Homemade Tri-Color Pasta.
I don’t like “chunks” of vegetables, especially spinach, in my pasta. Here is my SIS (simple is smart) solution for clear, intensely colored vegetable juice. Cut up the beets and boil them until they are soft. Put the fresh spinach in a bowl and microwave it until it is soft. Let the cooked vegetables cool, and then puree them in a blender. Add a tiny bit of water if needed.
To extract the juice put the puree in a nut milk bag and squeeze out the juice. You only need 2 tablespoons.
Make the Homemade Tri-color Pasta:
The pasta is easy to make. Make one color at a time. Add all of the ingredients to the mixing bowl of a stand mixer and mix until the pasta forms a ball. The pasta should be firm and not sticky. Adjust the texture with more flour or juice to achieve the correct consistency.
Wrap the finished pasta in plastic wrap to keep it from drying out before you roll it out.
Roll out the Pasta:
Cut each colored piece of pasta dough in half. Roll each piece in the pasta roller. I use semolina flour to keep the pasta from sticking to the roller. The little light colored specks on the pasta is the semolina flour. If you don’t have a pasta roller, you can roll it out by hand. However, the dough is so firm that this is a difficult task. I use the Kitchenaid attachment to roll out the pasta.
Cutting the Homemade Tri-color Pasta.
The Kitchenaid Attachment for my stand mixer comes with the roller and a cutter for thin spaghetti and thicker fettuccini. I used the fettuccini cutter for this recipe.
Once the pasta is cut, cook it in boiling water for about 4 minutes and serve with your favorite sauce. A favorite sauce is Italian Herb Browned Butter Sauce. Store the pasta in an airtight container in the fridge for several days, or dry the pasta on a pasta rack or a clean dishtowel.
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Homemade Tri-Color Pasta
Equipment
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- pasta roller and cutter (optional but very helpful)
Ingredients
- 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (120g)
- 1 Large egg plus 1 egg yolk
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 2 Tbsp vegetable juice (beet or spinach) or 2 Tbsp. tomato paste.
Instructions
- Make the beet and spinach juice by cooking the vegetable and then pureeing it. Use a nut milk bag to strain out the solids, leaving the juice for the pasta. For the tomato, use tomato paste.
- Mix each color of pasta separately. For each color of pasta, mix the flour, eggs, salt, and vegetable juice in the bowl of the stand mixer. Knead the dough on medium-low until you have a firm, smooth dough-about 2 minutes. If the dough is sticky, add a little additional flour. If the dough is dry, add a little vegetable juice and remix until the perfect consistency.
- Let the dough rest for 60 minutes. Divide each color of dough into 2 pieces and cover to keep from drying out. Then roll out each piece of dough using the pasta roller attachment until the desired thickness is achieved. Add flour as needed if the dough is a little sticky. You can also roll the dough by hand.
- Cut the rolled dough into the desired width with the fettuccini attachment. Alternately cut the dough by hand with a knife.
- Cook the pasta in 4 quarts of boiling water until desired doneness (about 4 minutes).
- Drain into a colander and run under cool water briefly to stop the cooking process.
- Serve with your favorite sauce or my Sage Browned Butter Sauce.
- You can store the pasta fresh in the refrigerator for three to four days. Dry the pasta on a drying rack and store for 6 to 8 months in a container with an airtight lid,
