Coloring Pasta Dough with natural Colors
Natural colors are made from vegetables. There are a few things to keep in mind, because – and you can read about this later in the text below – things don’t always go the way you want! Not every color gives the result you hope for, but that’s what makes handmade colorful pasta so beautiful!
If you color Pasta Dough with vegetable colors, you must remember that you add liquid to the dough (pureed vegetables). This means that you either must save liquid in the “normal” ingredients or add more flour. Which way you choose is up to you. But since I don’t like to make large amounts of pasta, I hold back on liquid. So, you can always add half an egg yolk or so when kneading.
What I also want to mention is that the vegetables hardly give off any flavor to the pasta.
With spinach as colorant: (green)
200 g Spinach (quickly fry it in a little butter, let cool, then squish all the water out)
1 Pinch of Salt
1 tbsp Olive Oil
Puree in a blender.
Or green freckled with Parsley:
1 Bunch of Parsley
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 Pinch of Salt
Puree in a blender.
Or add 2-3 tbsp of green Pesto
Dark red color:
2 Beetroot, boiled until soft, peeled and cut into pieces
1-2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 pinch of Salt
Puree together in a blender.
Orange-red color:
Add 3 tbsp of Tomato Paste to the batter.
Yellow color:
1 yellow Capsicum, cut into quarters, place on a baking sheet, spray with oil spray and roast in oven at 180 C degrees for about 30-40 minutes until skin comes off in bubbles. Let cool, then peel off the skin.
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 pinch of Salt
Puree everything together.
For very yellow Pasta use 1-2 tsp of Turmeric, mix it into the egg!
For black color: Use the ink of the octopus
Gray-blue color:
1/4 red Cabbage, chopped, boiled in water for 40 minutes until tender, drained and cooled.
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 pinch of Salt
Puree all.