Serves 8 to 10

It’s important not to overbake the lasagna. Once the sauce starts bubbling around the edges, turn the oven to broil. If your lasagna pan is not broiler-safe, brown the lasagna at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes. Whole milk is best in the sauce, but skim and low-fat milk also work. Supermarket-brand cheeses work fine in this recipe. The Gorgonzola may be omitted, but the flavor of the lasagna won’t be as complex. The test kitchen prefers the flavor and texture of Barilla no-boil noodles, but this recipe will work with most brands. One box of Barilla will yield enough noodles for this recipe; you may need two boxes of other brands.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
For the best flavor in our four-cheese lasagna recipe, we settled on a combination of fontina, Parmesan, Gorgonzola, and Gruyère. But the real secret to a great four-cheese lasagna recipe proved to be a fifth cheese. While ricotta didn’t add much flavor, it gave the lasagna body without making the dish heavy and starchy.

Serves 8 to 10

It’s important not to overbake the lasagna. Once the sauce starts bubbling around the edges, turn the oven to broil. If your lasagna pan is not broiler-safe, brown the lasagna at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes. Whole milk is best in the sauce, but skim and low-fat milk also work. Supermarket-brand cheeses work fine in this recipe. The Gorgonzola may be omitted, but the flavor of the lasagna won’t be as complex. The test kitchen prefers the flavor and texture of Barilla no-boil noodles, but this recipe will work with most brands. One box of Barilla will yield enough noodles for this recipe; you may need two boxes of other brands.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
For the best flavor in our four-cheese lasagna recipe, we settled on a combination of fontina, Parmesan, Gorgonzola, and Gruyère. But the real secret to a great four-cheese lasagna recipe proved to be a fifth cheese. While ricotta didn’t add much flavor, it gave the lasagna body without making the dish heavy and starchy.

Serves 2 to 3 as a main dish, or 4 to 6 as an appetizer

For the most accurate measurements, weigh the potatoes and flour. After processing, you may have slightly more than the 3 cups (16 ounces) of potatoes recquired for this recipe. Discard any extra or set aside for another use. Besides the browned butter sauce, try our Gorgonzola Cream Sauce, Parmesan Sauce with Pancetta and Walnuts, and Porcini Mushroom Broth (related).

Makes 1 pound; serves 4 to 6
If using a high-protein all-purpose flour like King Arthur brand, increase the amount of egg yolks to seven. The longer the dough rests in step 2 the easier it will be to roll out. When rolling out the dough, avoid adding too much flour, which may result in excessive snapback.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
For a pasta dough that could be easily rolled out by hand (but still cook up into delicate, springy noodles), we added six extra egg yolks and a couple tablespoons of olive oil. In addition, we incorporated an extended resting period to allow the gluten network to relax and developed a simple, effective rolling technique.

Total Time: 45 minutes
Preparation Time: 0 minutes
Active Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Yield: 1 pound fresh pasta
Make Ahead: Pasta can be kept at room temperature for several hours
Difficulty: Intermediate

Fresh pasta is surprisingly easy to make at home. Yes, you will need a hand-cranked pasta machine, but the ingredient list could not be shorter (just eggs and flour) and the results are much better than anything you can buy.

You will be making 1 pound of Fresh Egg Pasta. We will be cutting the pasta into fettuccine that you should use for the Fettuccine Alfredo recipe in this lesson.

While we suggest using a pasta machine to cut fettuccine, you can cut fresh sheets of pasta by hand. Simply fold each sheet crosswise into thirds or quarters. Use a sharp chef’s knife and cut perpendicular to folds to form noodles of desired width. This technique comes in handy when you want to make wider shapes, like pappardelle or tagliatelle.

Here are the guidelines for cutting fresh by hand:

Pappardelle: 3/4 to 1 inch wide
Tagliatelle: 1/4 to 3/8 inch wide
Fettuccine: 1/8 to 1/4 inch wide

• We like Italian-made hand-operated manual pasta machines. We’ve tested the Imperia and Atlas pasta machines—the two major brands in Italy and widely available in cookware shops around the world—and found them equally good.