There’s noth­ing more com­fort­ing than a big bowl of creamy, cheesy pas­ta. So luck­i­ly for you, this recipe tastes ex­act­ly like your fa­vorite restau­rant-style pas­ta Al­fre­do — ex­cept we added a few more in­gre­di­ents, so it’s burst­ing with sa­vory sun-dried toma­to and herb fla­vor. Be­cause of the toma­to, this toma­to Al­fre­do sauce turns slight­ly pink, which is dif­fer­ent to the tra­di­tion­al white Al­fre­do sauce we’re used to. Best part is you don’t have to leave your house to en­joy it.

If you haven’t had fresh hand­made pas­ta be­fore, you’re miss­ing out. It tastes way bet­ter than the dried pas­ta from the store. Not on­ly is it very easy to make, but it on­ly re­quires 4 sim­ple in­gre­di­ents that you prob­a­bly al­ready have avail­able in your kitchen. Home­made pas­ta al­so cooks much quick­er than the one from the box — about three to four min­utes in salt­ed boil­ing wa­ter.

In­gre­di­ents

For the pas­ta dough

2 cups all-pur­pose flour

2 large eggs plus 6 large yolks

2 ta­ble­spoons olive oil

1 ta­ble­spoon salt

For the Toma­to Al­fre­do Sauce

3 ta­ble­spoons un­salt­ed An­chor but­ter

2 ta­ble­spoons ba­con, diced (op­tion­al)

1 small onion, diced fine

1 bay leaf

Pinch red pep­per flakes

3 medi­um gar­lic cloves, minced

2 ta­ble­spoons toma­to paste

3 ta­ble­spoons sun-dried toma­toes, rinsed, dried and chopped

2 cups toma­toes, diced fine­ly

¼ cup white wine, veg­etable stock OR wa­ter

1 pound fresh pas­ta (see above)

½ cup An­chor Heavy Cream

1/2 cup grat­ed An­chor ched­dar cheese

¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves

Ex­tra An­chor Ched­dar Cheese for serv­ing

Di­rec­tions

To Make the Dough: Com­bine flour, eggs and yolks, and oil in food proces­sor. Pulse un­til the mix­ture forms a round dough that feels soft and is bare­ly tacky to touch, about 45 sec­onds. If dough sticks to fin­gers, add up to 1/4 cup flour, 1 ta­ble­spoon at a time, un­til bare­ly tacky. If dough doesn’t come to­geth­er add up to 1 ta­ble­spoon wa­ter, 1 tea­spoon at a time, un­til it just comes to­geth­er; process 30 sec­onds longer.

Al­ter­nate­ly, you can use the ta­ble method for mak­ing your pas­ta dough. Place the flour in a mound of your ta­ble sur­face. Place a hole in the cen­ter to cre­ate a crater. Place the whole eggs, yolks and oil in the cen­ter of the crater and start whisk­ing in a cir­cu­lar mo­tion us­ing a fork. As you whisk the in­gre­di­ents to­geth­er, slow­ly pull bits of flour from the side. Be care­ful not to break your crater. Do this un­til all the mois­ture is ab­sorbed and then start knead­ing the dough as be­low.

Turn dough ball on­to dry sur­face and knead un­til smooth, 1 to 2 min­utes. Shape dough in­to 6-inch-long cylin­der. Wrap with plas­tic wrap and set aside at room tem­per­a­ture to rest for at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.

In the mean­time, prep the pas­ta sauce: Melt but­ter in medi­um saucepan over medi­um heat. Add ba­con (if us­ing), onion, bay leaf, pep­per flakes, and 1/4 tea­spoon salt. Cook stir­ring oc­ca­sion­al­ly, un­til onion is very soft and be­gin­ning to turn light gold, 8 to 12 min­utes.

In­crease heat to medi­um-high, add gar­lic, and cook un­til fra­grant, about 30 sec­onds. Stir in toma­to paste and sun-dried toma­toes and cook, stir­ring con­stant­ly, un­til slight­ly dark­ened, 1 to 2 min­utes.

Add wine and cook, stir­ring fre­quent­ly, un­til liq­uid has evap­o­rat­ed, 1 to 2 min­utes.

Add toma­toes and bring to sim­mer. Re­duce heat to low, par­tial­ly cov­er, and cook, stir­ring oc­ca­sion­al­ly, un­til sauce is thick­ened, about 25 to 30 min­utes.

While that’s work­ing roll out pas­ta dough: Cut dough in­to 6 equal as you can get them pieces. Work­ing with 1 piece of dough (rewrap re­main­ing dough so that it doesn’t dry out).

Dust both sides with flour, place on clean work sur­face, and press in­to about a 3-inch square. Us­ing heavy rolling pin, roll in­to about a 6-inch square. Dust both sides of dough light­ly with flour. Roll dough thin­ly. Add small bits of dust­ing flour as you go to pre­vent dough stick­ing. Once done, You should be able to eas­i­ly see out­line of your fin­gers through dough.

Trans­fer pas­ta sheet to sheet tray dust­ed with a lit­tle flour and let stand, un­cov­ered, un­til firm around edges, about 15 min­utes.

Start­ing with short end, gen­tly fold pas­ta sheet at 2-inch in­ter­vals un­til sheet has been fold­ed in­to flat, rec­tan­gu­lar roll. With sharp chef’s knife, slice cross­wise in­to about 1/3 of an inch wide. This is for Tagli­atelle. I al­so like Pap­pardelle which is about 3/4-1 inch wide.

Use fin­gers to un­furl pas­ta and trans­fer to bak­ing sheet. Re­peat fold­ing and cut­ting re­main­ing sheets of dough. Cook noo­dles with­in 1 hour or you can freeze at this point.

Mean­while, bring 4 quarts wa­ter to boil. Add pas­ta and 1 ta­ble­spoon salt and cook un­til al dente. Re­serve 1/2 cup cook­ing wa­ter; drain pas­ta and trans­fer back to cook­ing pot.

Re­move bay leaf from sauce and dis­card. Stir cream and ched­dar. Sea­son to taste with salt and pep­per. Add sauce to cooked pas­ta, ad­just­ing con­sis­ten­cy with up to 1/2 cup pas­ta cook­ing wa­ter. Stir in basil and serve with ched­dar on top!