Homemade Chickpea Pasta
Chickpea flour is one of my favorite gluten-free flours to experiment with in the kitchen. Made from finely ground chickpeas (garbanzo beans), the flour is packed with protein and fiber. It has just a slight chickpea flavor that can be either complimented or hidden with other flavors, depending on your end goal.
So far, we've made pancakes, socca, and the world's creamiest and smoothest hummus with chickpea flour. Seriously, it is worth buying a bag of the stuff just for the hummus. You can normally find it in the gluten-free baking section of your grocery store. We buy Bob's Red Mill brand.
Besides the hummus, my favorite thing to come out of the discovery of chickpea flour is homemade pasta. The beauty of this pasta dough is in its total simplicity. Just a handful of ingredients- and one happens to be water. It doesn't get much easier than that.
The end result is a soft pasta with a slightly nutty flavor from the flaxseed. You won't be fooling any die-hard white/refined pasta fans, but if you tend to like more hearty carbs, this is a pasta for you. We paired it with some vegan roasted red pepper pesto, and it was an amazing combo.
My favorite pasta-making method is 100% (wo)man-powered. I pile up the flour on a board, make a well, and then dump in the egg (or in this case, flax egg). Then I slowly incorporate the flour with the wet ingredients until it forms into a nice solid dough. At first, it always seems like there is way too much flour, but I promise it'll all combine nicely if you just keep working it. Be patient.
If you have a pasta roller and cutter, awesome blossom! Go ahead and use those to your liking. I do not. So I used my good ol' rolling pin and pizza cutter. The key to good pasta is rolling it out very, very thin. Thinner than you think it should be. The pasta will double or triple (or even more) in thickness from absorbing the cooking water.
If you are going the rustic simple method, like I did, try to stick with pasta shapes that can accept some imperfection. Farfalle (bow tie pasta) is perfect for those of us without a pasta cutter. Just cut into squares and pinch, and you have some adorable, rustic bow ties. Pappardelle-which are big, long, wide noodles like the ones pictured here-work perfectly, too!
When I first made this recipe, I did it with just three ingredients-flaxseed, chickpea flour, and water-and the end result was manageable, but was a bit tricky to work with when forming into pasta.
After a bit of retesting, we figured out that adding some fat (in the form of olive oil) and some stickiness (in the form of tapioca flour) really helps to make the pasta a lot easier to work with. We've updated the recipe below with the new measurements, but if you liked the old version, you can download that recipe in the header of the recipe card or right here.
📖 Recipe
Gluten-Free and Vegan Chickpea and Flaxseed Homemade Pasta
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons golden flaxseed meal
- 6 tablespoons warm water
- 1 ½ cups chickpea flour
- ¼ cup tapioca flour
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
Instructions
- Mix the flaxseed and warm water in a small bowl and set aside for about 10 minutes, or until thickened. Meanwhile, whisk together the chickpea flour, tapioca flour, and salt in a large bowl.
- Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add the flaxseed and water mixture. Stir until large crumbles form, and then add the oil and knead with your hands until the dough comes together and can be formed into a ball.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and set aside for 20-30 minutes.
- Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.
- Dust a large surface, your hands, and a rolling pin with chickpea flour, and roll the dough out until very thin. The dough is tough, so this will be a bit of a workout. Slice into long strips ½-inch wide to make fettucine (or cut and fold into your desired shape).
- Once the water has come to a rolling boil, add the pasta and cook for 1-3 minutes, or until al dente. If the pasta is cooked for too long, it will begin to break into pieces. Drain and serve hot with your favorite sauce.
Nutrition
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1. This looks awesome!
2. How do you make hummus with chickpea flour?
3. Thank you!
Thank you for this. I've just been told to cut out all gluten, corn and rice and am dying for pasta.
I'm going to try your recipe in a couple of days as a noodle. When I'm sure that I've got it right I will try it in a spinach ricotta lasagne.
BTW I found it funny that your only pasta machine is for polymer clay. Mine too! Too funny!
Hello!
This recipe sounds great! Do you think it would work to dry and store it? I have a gluten free friend that I'd love to gift some of this the next time I visit!
Thanks!
I'm actually not sure, Jes! I've never tried. If you do test it out, make sure you report back. 🙂
I've been making pasta for years and my standard recipe has always been the flour/egg combo (with salted water). My initial thought was to simply sub in the chick pea flour for the regular flour but your recipe has no egg. I'm a little curious if the binding that is obviously adequate in your recipe is coming from the oil in the flax, or is this something I can expect in dealing with the chick pea flour? Eliminating the egg makes it seem almost like a flammekeuche type dough but I'm concerned about the binding. Any advice?
It's definitely crumblier than regular pasta dough, but it sticks together just fine with careful handling. I would say that chickpea flour is a lot finer than regular flower, and it has a definite sticky quality. So maybe that's why it works. 🙂
Can you dry this or maybe free it? I was thinking I could make a few batches and do it once a month if it's possible to do that. Great recipe and site. I've been a veg head for awhile, but I just became gluten free for health reasons and this is a godsend. Thank you so much.
I haven't tried it, buy I don't see why not. Since it's pretty fragile, I think freezing might be best. Let me know if you try it.
I've taken ground flax as a supplement but never cared for the taste in recipe. Hummus was one of these so I bet this recipe would taste similar.
I have recently discovered chia, though, which has many properties in common with flax (including use as egg substitute) but has almost no flavor of its own. I bet it would work really well.
When I made the pasta, it was very fragile. Every time I tried to shape it into the bow ties it broke. So I used a small biscuit cutter, maybe an inch or two in size, and that worked wonderfully! After boiling for a minute I sauted them in a pan with olive oil, a little crushed red pepper, sun dried tomatoes, fresh spinach and cherry tomatoes (sliced into thirds) until the spinach had slightly wilted. It was oh so good! I'v made fresh pasta before but not gluten free, although it is a tad more challenging, it is definitely worth it. And I think I could put this on non gluten free eaters plates and they would love it as much as regular pasta!
Wow. You just made a recipe for something that was thought of being impossible a few years ago. I am so excited to try this. Thank you so much!
Just made the pasta tonight. It was, less than enticing. Not the recipe's fault at all though! I did like the nutty flavour of the pasta but I made the mistake of using the pasta machine when I've never made pasta before, let alone used a machine. So I ended up with a big doughy,thick, gluggy mess BUT I will definitely try this again as if I had the texture/consistency down pat I know it would have been AMAZING. I think using a rolling pin will make it much easier for a newbie like me. Will let you know how round 2 goes!
This sounds amazing! Gorgeous pictures!
Just an idea for the "lasagne", you could boil the pasta sheets separately and layer them with sauce/cheese before serving. And maybe broil cheese on top. Not quite the same oven-baked result, but more sort of like open ravioli (which I have seen a recipe for somewhere).
Thank you for the wonderful recipe. Any idea how it does in lasagna? With the longer cooking time I'm curious.
Thank you
I haven't tried it yet in lasagna, but I'm a little afraid they might just totally fall apart. They cook so quickly! Maybe try letting the noodles dry out a bit before putting them in the lasagna? If you do try it, let me know how it turns out!
This homemade pasta is mesmerizing! I have always wanted to make my own fresh pasta. That's wonderful it's made with chickpea flour too!
(P.S. I love your prints on your Etsy shop!)
Thanks! You should definitely try making your own. 🙂
That sounds incredible! I love black bean spaghetti and chickpea flour bread, so I'm sure i would like this too. 🙂
Black bean spaghetti? That sounds awesome!
It is!!! I was online looking for a homemade black bean recipe and came across your site. I love the simplicity. Thanks for your site!
I was really excited to try my first homemade pasta since we went allergen free last week. I had a really difficult time rolling it out and I used pretty small pieces. They got smaller and smaller in an attempt to make them thin enough. They weren't awful but, my son didn't like them. They were too doughy because I didn't make them thin enough. I am sure they will be great if I can just figure out how to thin them out.
Having a roller would definitely help. It is not an easy task doing it by hand.
My boyfriend has a very serious grain allergy so to prevent cross-contamination in baking I roll out a lot of my doughs between two sheets of parchment paper. It worked really well for getting the pasta thin enough without a machine, it was like linguine.
Mixed the dough yesterday, subbing Flax meal for the seed and reduced Aguafaba (6T) instead of water. Good consistency (I've made plenty of whole wheat pasta but just started a gluten free diet for RA). I let sit in the fridge overnight, and it was pretty firm when I pulled it out (probably should've kneaded a smidgen more olive oil into it, or have used 2T more aguafaba. Rolled it to #4 KitchenAid, then fettuccini. I may have overcooked it 30secs. It glopped a bit, and some pieces split - but very tasty! When I correct my cook time I think this will be a total winner. Thank you for the recipe!
You're so welcome, Manya! Thanks for letting us know what adjustments you made and how they worked out. That's really helpful for us and other readers. We appreciate the feedback!
wow, girl. you just did what the grain-free community has been begging for for years. seriously. you cracked the code!
Hope you like it! 🙂
whoa lady! this looks fantastic! as a gluten-free vegan, i am all over this recipe!!
Hope you love it!
What cute little yummy looking pasta! I have never made homemade pasta before, but I bought a pasta rolling attachment for my Kitchen aid. One day, I will break it in and make some pasta. I want to make some pumpkin filled ravioli with a sage brown butter sauce.
I would LOVE the pasta attachment, but I just can't justify the moolah!
I totally understand that. I got mine with a gift certificate I won from a cooking contest. 🙂
It is so worth it. I ended up getting the pasta press instead of the roller. I now make homemade pasta at least once a week. I am going to try this recipe tonight and toss into a carbonara. There is only two of us, so we usually freeze half the dough for use the next week. Thanks for the recipe.
I am very interested in trying this recipe. I am wondering if when you make all the noodles could they be then frozen? I eat a lot of pasta like at least two to three times a week so I don't want to be rolling dough that often and since being diagnosed with an auto immune disease the only flours I can use are chickpea, tapioca, coconut, buckwheat, and gluten free oat so I am so excited to have stumbled across this post thank you so much for sharing!!
Love it! I'm going to pick up some chickpea flour this weekend and get to experimenting! My great-grandmother, my grandmother and now, I use the same method as you for making the dough for noodles. In my family the recipe was passed down for making egg noodles that go in chicken soup. I always like making the noodles by hand, it feels old world and there is a pretty cool way of rolling the dough up and cutting it to make it into stringy noodles for soup. : ) I think I might like to experiment with this noodle recipe for raviolis filled with sweet potato, or butternut squash... we'll see...
Oooh! That sounds so good. The sweet potato/squash would pair so well with the flax taste. YUM.
And my family does the same thing for chicken 'n' dumplins for Thanksgiving every year. The recipe is basically "a crapload of flour + a crapload of eggs" and a whole lot of elbow grease. 🙂
Wow, who knew chickpea flower was easy enough to work with to use it for homemade pasta! My then boyfriend and I made pasta together once a looong time ago. We found it difficult to roll the dough out thin enough. You've inspired me to give it another try!
I think the key to rolling it thin is starting with a very small hunk of dough, that way you can really focus on getting it paper thin. Good luck! And I highly recommend chickpea flour. 🙂
Can u use this recipe with a pasta maker machine? What type of noodle would be best,thick or thin.?
I don't have a pasta machine, but I don't see why not. A thicker noodle would definitely be best. The lack of gluten makes the dough pretty fragile when it's thin.
Sounds Yummie, will try this weekend. Am i missing the serving size?