Making fresh pasta with different types of flour is quite thrilling… and this pasta, made with fresh chickpea flour (aka garbanzo bean flour), is fun to make and absolutely delicious! The pasta acquires the slightly nutty, mild flavor of chickpeas, and turns out to be incredibly light.
For best results, the chickpea flour needs to be mixed with “00” flour (or regular all-purpose flour). This is because the chickpea flour lacks gluten, and so a dough made completely of chickpea flour would be too stiff to knead (watch the video to learn my kneading technique!) and would lack the perfect texture of fresh pasta.
Making this pasta dough is quite easy. But there are some tricks…
The recipe can be made in exactly the same way as a regular pasta, except for two things: (1) the pasta cannot be hung, or it’ll stretch and become too thin (and might even break!), and (2) it must be rolled slightly thicker than a regular pasta dough. If this is your first time making pasta dough, or you’re at all unsure about your ability, the videos are here to help you out.
The delicate flavor of this chickpea pasta is perfect for light sauces. Toss it with this classic heirloom tomato sauce or make this superb fettuccine with lemon sauce and honey-roasted cherry tomatoes!
Fresh pasta dough with chickpea flour
makes scant 1 lb (425 g)
active time: 45 min
- 3/4 cup chickpea/garbanzo flour (3 oz) (85 g)
- 1 cup “00” flour (5.5 oz) (155 g) or unbleached all-purpose flour (5 oz) (140 g)
- 3 extra large eggs (6.5 oz) (185 g) – at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- “00” or unbleached all-purpose flour for rolling the dough
- 1 large jelly roll pan – sprinkled with semolina or “00” flour
- Step 1:
Place both flours in a large bowl and stir until well blended. Then make a wide well in the center. Break the eggs into the well. Add the oil to the eggs and beat the eggs lightly with a fork. Once the eggs are well blended, gradually draw in the flour by continuously beating the eggs in a circular motion and widening the circles. Once the eggs and flour have started to form a dough, use your fingers to incorporate the balance of the flour. Turn the dough over a lightly floured surface and knead it for 8 to 10 minutes until smooth and elastic, adding a little more of the flour as necessary if the dough is sticky. (The dough will be sticky in the beginning but will become more firm and smooth as you knead it, so make sure not to add too much flour – otherwise, the dough will become too stiff.) When the dough is ready, dust it with more flour, wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. - Step 2: Clean your work surface and hook your pasta machine to your counter top, making sure you have plenty of room on either side of it.
- Step 3: Uncover the dough and divide it into 4 equal parts. Keep the pieces covered as you work so that they don’t dry up. Take one piece of dough and shape it into a rectangle, about 3″ x 6″. Fold it in three as you would with a letter ready to be put into an envelope. Flatten it with your hand and dust it with flour. Set your pasta machine at setting #1 (or widest setting). Crank the machine with your right hand and feed the dough into the roller with your left hand. As soon as the dough goes through the roller, position your left hand underneath the machine, where the dough will come out. Make sure to hold your hand flat, so as not to tear the dough. Place the rolled strip flat on the work surface and fold it in three again. Dust it with flour again and roll it through the pasta machine. Repeat this process 2 more times, folding, dusting and then rolling the dough each time (for a total of 4 times).
- Step 4: Reset the rollers to the #2 setting (or one notch smaller than the widest setting), and pass the dough through the machine once. Dust the dough with flour. Then pass the dough through settings #3 and #4 in turn, dusting the dough with flour each time before rolling it. Finally, pass the dough through either the fettuccine or pappardelle attachment. Lay the pasta on the prepared jelly roll pan. Repeat with the other pieces of dough, until all the pasta is cut. The pasta can be boiled right away. Otherwise, leave it on the jelly roll pan until slightly dried, place it loosely in plastic freezer bags and freeze for up to 1 month. Do not refrigerate the pasta, as this will make it sticky. See individual recipe for cooking time.
Viviane’s tip
- When I tested this recipe with spaghetti, I found that the pasta was too delicate. The strands broke easily and were very hard to mix with the sauce. Therefore, I recommend cutting this dough in wider strips – like fettuccine or pappardelle.
Made the chickpea pasta for the first time. It was delicious. Told my sis about it. She was amazed about the four times to run the dough through the machine at the start. My noodles were tender after 2 1/2 minutes of cooking. She presses hers once and cooks them for 45 min! Does chickpea flour make the noodle more tender? Is more rolling through the machine important? What does 4 times do that 1 time won’t. Looking forward to smoked salmon alfredo tonight using the rest of yesterday’s batch. Thank you for a great recipe and video!
Lani, my apologies for this terribly late reply! If you roll your dough through the pasta machine only once, you end up with a very thick pasta! No wonder it took so long for your sister’s to boil. The process of rolling the pasta dough several times, each time through a smaller setting, also improves the elasticity of the dough and gives the pasta its perfect final texture… so keep rolling! 🙂 Thank you for your comment and happy pasta making! Viviane
This is my first visit to your site….and I think you are just wonderful! You need your own cooking show, I could watch you for hours! Thank you for your lovely recipe for chickpea pasta, it is very helpful to watch your technique, which is so very clean and flawless. You make it look easy! I’m excited to try!
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Hi I am wheat and gluten intolerant and that for an Italian person is unfortunate notwithstanding the fact thousands of other fellow Italians share this plight.
So your valid and sound suggestion as there is no gluten in chickpea flour then add some as in oo pasta flour. That’s the whole point of avoiding gluten because of intolerance to the same. One might just as well use the omnipresent 00 flour in the first place and not bother with the chickpea flour in the first place albeit a greatly reduced content. Of course pasta and bread won’t realise without gluten so a way has to be found to make it happen. The answer lies in experimentation. Gluten intolerance is a serious business as you know.
Hi Dino, I am very sorry that you are struggling with gluten intolerance – that’s a very hard thing to go through, especially if you are Italian! My goodness… As for this recipe, it is not intended to be a “gluten free” recipe. I use chickpea flour here because I love the flavor, not because it is gluten free. The focus of my website and of all the recipes I create is flavor… I find chickpea flour extremely flavorful and unique. Hence my using it in this recipe.
Hello, I am a new member. I followed your instructions on the chickpea pasta, using unbleached flour with chickpea flour.
It looked good. I put it in floured pans and covered with a cloth overnight. This morning, all the fettuccine pasta is stuck together and still very moist. Can’t be pulled apart. What do you think happened?
Hi Toni! I am really sorry you put all that work into making fresh pasta and are now experiencing a problem. Two things: I think your dough must have been a bit too soft – this will make the pasta sticky. Secondly, I do not recommend for this pasta to be stored either in the fridge or at room temp covered, because it will do just that: become sticky. The best thing is to use the pasta within 1 hour, or to let it stand at room temperature, uncovered, for about 30 minutes to 1 hour so that it dries a bit and then freeze it as per the instructions in Step 4.
Next time you make a batch, make sure to generously dust the pasta sheets with flour (both sides) before you roll them out, especially the last run, when you cut them into fettuccine. This will also help with the pasta not sticking together. Also, make sure your dough is not sticky when you knead it. It should be smooth and elastic, but not too soft or stick to your work surface. Good luck and let me know how it goes!
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I tried making plain garbonzo flour pasta on the machne that I bought in a German store. It was such a mess, but my family wanted lasagna that was gluten free. It was all right for that but forget making the noodles. Thank you for your video that showed me how to do it more effectively. I will try it again with you hints. Thanks.
Hi Dolores, I am not a gluten-free expert, but I can say that it is very difficult to make 100% garbanzo bean flour pasta (if not impossible) – precisely because it lacks gluten. You may want to try to mix the garbanzo bean flour with a gluten-free flour mixture such as Cup4Cup (http://amzn.to/13HwC7P) which has been formulated to mimic gluten. For me, using garbanzo bean/chickpea flour is not about making a gluten-free pasta, but one that is packed with the wonderful flavors of the chickpeas. Plus, as I mentioned in the intro, the pasta ends up with a wonderfully delicate texture. Good luck with your fresh pasta making, my dear… And thank you for your note!
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I NEVER would have thought about this! SO clever and delicious
Thank you, Kayle… It’s always great fun for me to create new and unexpected recipes!
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