Jamie Oliver's Two-Ingredient Fresh Pasta Has TikTok Under A Hunger Trance

You know when you go to a fancy Italian restaurant and they have fresh homemade pasta on the menu? In addition to being amazingly delicious, it always costs a pretty penny. So wouldn't it be great if you could make this indulgent dish at home? Too much work, right? For that price tag, it's gotta be like painting the Sistine Chapel in dough, or at the very least supremely messy and complicated, probably using a thousand ingredients that you'd have to buy especially for this. Oh, and a pasta maker. Don't forget one of those.

Turns out, not so much. As food-world legend Jamie Oliver has shown his following on TikTok, making pasta can be as easy as two simple ingredients — and one of those is water, so really it's only one thing you have to run out to the store for or hunt around in your pantry to find. The rest, as Oliver puts it, "is child's play."

Jamie Oliver — who's built a career out of making cooking accessible with such programs as "Jamie's 30-Minute Meals," "Jamie's 15-Minute Meals," and "Jamie's One-Pan Wonders," as well as his website rife with recipes to whet your appetite without wearing you out — has found a way to make preparing pasta from scratch not seem burdensome (per IMDb & Jamie Oliver). Oliver also draws attention in his TikTok to the fact that despite often being expensive in restaurants, homemade pasta is actually quite budget friendly.

Oliver says to start by mixing a handful per person of flour with a "splash" of water, then kneading it together until it's shiny but not sticky, adding more flour as needed. He recommends this activity for kids, as well. Then roll the dough out with a rolling pin on a flat surface. Once you have a nice, flat length of dough, lightly flour it, then gently roll it up. Once rolled, slice the pasta log into slices about ¼ inch thick. Then pick up the pasta and shake it loosely between your fingers, holding your hands in what Oliver calls "a little birdcage." Repeat. There should be flour flying everywhere. Now you're ready to put your pasta into the water. You want to add it to a pot that's already boiling. Because this pasta is fresh and not dried, Oliver is clear that it only needs a few minutes in the water. Then toss it with your favorite sauce; and, congratulations, you just made tagliatelle.