Homemade Fusilli
Using the pasta dough we have listed on our site, you can make a lot of different shapes. Ideally you form pasta to accompany the type of sauce you are making. A fusilli is good with a marinara sauce, as the spirals get pieces of that sauce caught in the pasta. Using just a metal dowel that was purchased and cut at Home Depot is all you need to make this shape. It is time consuming, but really rewarding.
Tips:
Allow the fusilli to dry out completely before storing the pasta in your pantry. No need to refrigerate.
My dowel is about 12” long, so I can make really long fusilli. Cut your dowel to your desired length.
Homemade Fusili
Makes 1 1/2 lbs.
PREP 40 minutes
COOK 3 minutes if fresh, longer if dried
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 eggs, at room temperature
INSTRUCTIONS
To make the pasta dough, create a volcano of flour on your countertop, with a hole in the middle.
One at time, crack an egg into the well and use a fork to incorporate the egg into the flour. Be careful to hold the sides of the well with your free hand to keep the eggs from spilling out- it will happen eventually.
After you’ve added the final egg, use a bench scraper to collect all the flour and incorporate it together. It will be very crumbly at first and look all wrong. Don’t give up! It will eventually become smooth. Continue to knead the dough for about 5-7 minutes, until it isn’t sticky anymore and the dough is smooth and elastic.
Wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.
After it’s rested, divide the dough into 6-8 pieces. Working one at a time, keeping the unused dough wrapped, roll out the dough with a pasta machine to number 5.
Lay the sheet of pasta dough on your lightly floured surface and cut the dough into 1” thick strips and about 4-5” long. The trick is to be uniform. The fusilli can be as long as you like. I find using a pizza wheel is helpful.
Separate the strips and allow them to dry out a little on the top, about 2 minutes. If you try to roll them right away the dough will stick to the dowel and be a gloppy mess. If the dough is sticking, let it dry out a little more. The humidity in your home is a factor.
Watch the video above to see the technique to roll the fusilli. You want to wind the dough around the dowel, roll it gently on the countertop to seal the ends, then slide the fusilli off onto a clean dish towel. You can find more videos of me making fusilli here.
Allow the fusilli to dry a bit before cooking to maintain their shape.