How to Make Vegan Pasta

by Kevin Kroetsch
(Elora, Ontario, Canada)

Hello

I have been making pasta for my restaurant with eggs and flour. I have decided to make the restaurant 100% vegetarian and am looking for homemade pasta recipes that do not use any animal products.

I am also looking for recipes that are gluten free.

Can you help Matt?

Answer: Hi Kevin and thanks for the mail.

In terms of veggie and vegan-friendly fresh pasta, the way to go is to (obviously) dump the eggs and instead use durum wheat 'semolina' flour and water. This creates a slightly more translucent dough although the pasta is equally tasty.

Try my full recipe guide: how to make vegan pasta.

As for gluten-free pasta, I haven't made this yet. Certainly semolina flour is a no-no on a gluten free diet as it is made from wheat. But pasta does rely on the gluten in the flour to make it stretchy, so the key will be finding something to replace this with; I believe one often uses something called xanthum gum for this.

(Hang on, I've Googled this to death and just found a couple of starter links for you...

Here's a Chowhound thread on this subject.

And here's GlutenFreeGirl's recipe post.)

Finally, should you decide to use gluten-free packet pasta instead, Amazon has a decent online selection here.

Hope that's all helpful - do let me know how you get on!

Matt.