I can’t even express how excited I am to have cassava flour pasta in my backcountry food repertoire! Pasta is such a great staple in the backcountry; high in energy-supplying carbs, and super easy to make. And you can make it in whatever shape you like – linguine, fettuccine, pappardelle, farfalle… go wild!
And, well… PASTA!
Cassava is a tuber (root) that is gluten free. It’s a strong source of vitamin C and carbohydrates, with a whopping 38g carbs per 100g flour (¼ cup). For reference, it has double the calories and carbs as sweet potato (yikes!). For those of you with insulin resistance issues, be prudent! In the backcountry, I’m all about gobbling carbs. At home, I’m more careful about how much of this pasta I consume! Nothing quite like bingeing on pasta and wondering why your brain suddenly got mushy (“food coma” is insulin resistance talking: not good – it’s damaging for your brain).
Cassava flour comes from the cassava root, also known as manioc, tapioca root, and yuca (‘yoo-kah’) root, not to be confused with yucca (‘yuk-uh’) root, which is a completely different plant (short rant: food bloggers and produce departments get the name wrong all the time. it makes me cray-zee).
Although from the same plant, cassava flour and tapioca flour are not the same thing:
Tapioca flour is a starch extracted from cassava root via washing and pulping. The pulp is squeezed to extract a starchy liquid; once all the water evaporates from the liquid, the tapioca flour remains.
Cassava flour is the whole root, peeled, dried and ground. It has more dietary fiber than tapioca flour.
A note on cassava flour brands
The brand you use will affect how your pasta turns out. Below are the brands I’ve tried, and the results:
Otto’s: The finest (or ‘whitest’) and most spendy flour I’ve tried, it makes a pasta that’s closest to regular old durum semolina pasta.
Anthony’s: This one lies about halfway between Otto’s and Moon Rabbit for price, texture and ‘rusticness’ – as if you mixed white and whole wheat flours. I like it a lot. Then again, I love my pasta “crunchy al dente” 😉
Moon Rabbit: The least expensive and most ‘rustic’ of all the brands I’ve tried – more like you used a whole wheat flour for the pasta. I like it as well, and use it about half the time.
You can make many styles of pasta with this dough. I’ve made linguine, fettuccine, pappardelle, and bowties. Okay, and some cute little squares as an experiment. One of these days I’m going to try ravioli… oh my!
One note on pasta styles – the narrow the noodle, the more likely it is to break apart in your food bag. I’m not worried about that, since it all tastes great out in the wild, but if you’re one of those who gets all bent about broken pasta, go for a wider noodle like fettuccine or pappardelle. Also, don’t try to compensate by making it thicker; you’ll spend a lot of fuel trying to cook it at camp.
pappardelle!
an experiment… they came out great!
NOTE: I’ve seen comments on other blogger’s websites where readers had total failure with cassava pasta – that’s because they didn’t pay attention to the moisture level in the mix. So, when you are mixing up your pasta, go slowly, and if you sense that it’s becoming too dry or too wet, adjust flour and oil/egg accordingly, so you end up with an elastic ball of dough that’s not sticking to anything.
Sorry to all you AIP-strict campers out there – this recipe is Paleo but not AIP, because it has eggs. I’m planning to experiment with an egg-free version, but I don’t know if it will work. Why? In wheat pasta, the gluten holds the noodle together – cassava doesn’t have that, thus the egg. I promise you, if there’s a way to do it, I will discover it! It’s one of my projects for this summer, so I’ll keep you posted, success or not.
Why the eggs?
Most pasta made from wheat is made without eggs. It is not boiled before packaging either, though it does go through a steaming process that kills off bacteria. Why is this pasta boiled? Pasta made from cassava flour doesn’t have gluten to stick it together; the cooked eggs play that role. I tried making it by just dehydrating it fresh without pre-boiling, but the noodles came apart when cooked after dehydration. Cooking it before drying cooks the eggs, binding the flour, making it possible to boil after drying.
I’ve had this pasta freshly boiled at home (trust me, you’re gonna want to make a double batch so you can too!), as well as re-boiled in the field, and the texture is much the same. The benefit of the pre-boiling is that the eggs are cooked, making the chances for spoilage in storage much lower.
Cassava Pasta Recipe {Paleo}
Makes about 4 servings pasta (or 2 if you’ve just hiked 20 miles)
One serving (1/4 cup cassava flour) contains roughly 38g carbs
Ingredients
1 cup cassava flour
2 large eggs, plus 1 yolk
1/4 tsp salt, plus a pinch for the cooking water
2-3 tbs olive oil
NOTE: Depending on the brand of flour you use, you may need to either add more flour, or add a bit more olive oil (or the white from that third egg). Your dough should come out flexible but not sticky.
Instructions
Making the pasta
1. Pour the flour out on the countertop or a large cutting board. (I like to use a flexible plastic cutting board; it makes the whole process easier – explained below)
2. With your fingers, create a crater in the center of the flour, large enough to hold the eggs and olive oil – make sure it’s big enough for all that liquid!
3. Put the eggs, egg yolk, olive oil and salt into the crater.
eggs in a nest!
4. Using a fork, gently whisk the eggs, mixing in a bit of flour with each movement. Be wary of the eggs making a break for it over the flour wall!
whisking the eggs in
5. As the flour becomes incorporated enough that the eggs won’t flash mob on the countertop, start to use your hands to mix the dough, kneading it into a compact ball. It should end up plastic but dry enough to roll into a ball that doesn’t stick to anything. No need to knead it as long as a wheat-based dough; there is no gluten to work with.
6. Roll the dough into a ball, then into a cylinder.
dough rolled into a compact ball
the whole roll. cut this in half to roll out.
7. Cut the cylinder in half and place one piece to the side.
8. Flour the cutting board (you can use your countertop if it won’t be damaged by the knife you use to cut the pasta strips, but I prefer a flexible plastic cutting board – it makes it easier to handle the pasta later).
9. Press the cylinder into a flat rectangle.
10. Keeping the dough lightly floured, roll it out as thin as you can – you want the shorter edge to be about as long as you want your pasta strips. Go really thin – the pasta thickens up a bit when you cook it, and if you make it too thick, it will take longer in camp to cook through. It helps to flip the dough over once or twice during the process.
half the dough fills the entire cutting board
linguine cut noodles
see how thin this is? the pasta will thicken up when it cooks.
11. Using a thin plastic cutting board or something else as a guide, cut the pasta strips with a thin knife, making sure each piece separates from the one next to it. Don’t press much on the cutting board you are using as a guide; if you do, the dough will be harder to remove from the surface below.
using the blue board as a guide. this makes the cutting go really fast.
12. The pasta should be easy to remove or slide off the cutting board; move it to another surface so you can repeat with the other half of the dough.
OR: I like to use three soft plastic cutting boards for this (they commonly come in a set of three or set of four) – one for each half of the dough and one on the top to guide the knife. This way, I can just slide the noodles off each cutting board into the boiling water, and voila, we’re cooking!
13. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Throw in a pinch of salt.
14. Carefully drop the pasta off the cutting boards into the water (don’t splash!), and boil for 2 to 3 minutes depending on the thickness (test at 2 minutes). If you opted to roll it out on the countertop, if you floured the surface, you should be able to pick it up easily with the back of a long knife. Just slide the knife under, and make sure to use the flat back of the knife to lift the pasta.
15. While the pasta cooks, lay out the dehydrator trays so you can load them up quickly.
16. Drain the pasta in a strainer or colander. You can rinse with cold water if you like, but it’s not necessary. If you are eating the pasta fresh at home, you might want to not rinse – it remains starchier and sauces stick to it better.
17. Immediately after draining, once the pasta has cooled enough to touch, lay the pieces out on the dehydrator trays, leaving space between so they dry evenly. If you wait to lay the pieces out, they will begin to take the shape they have while laying in a tangled mess in the colander, and this makes it hard to lay them out on the trays. They will still dry this way, but it uses more room on the dryer trays, and more importantly, when you pack them up for the trail they will tend to poke through the plastic bag more than a handful of straight pasta pieces.
these pieces I laid out immediately – you can see how they are already trying to take curvy shapes from the colander
Dehydration
1. Dehydrate at 135°F for 5 to 6 hours depending on humidity, and thickness of pasta. Test a piece to make sure it’s dry all the way through. If in doubt, dry for more time.
2. Take the trays out and let the pasta cool completely.
the pasta after drying
Oven instructions
It’s easy to dry pasta in the oven. I prefer to do this only when I will be home the whole time. With my old oven and the short drying time, I didn’t find it necessary to vent. If your pasta seems to be taking a lot of time to dry, you may need to prop the door open to vent moisture.
1. Preheat the oven to 150° to 175°F.
2. Lay the pasta out on parchment paper-covered cookie sheets.
3. Dry for 3 to 4 hours, testing for dryness.
Storage
Package in an airtight container. Make sure to label it with date and ingredients.
- 1 cup cassava flour
- 2 large eggs, plus 1 yolk
- ¼ tsp salt, plus a pinch for the cooking water
- 2-3 tbs olive oil
- NOTE: Depending on the brand of flour you use, you may need to either add more flour, or add a bit more olive oil (or the white from that third egg). Your dough should come out flexible but not sticky.
- Making the pasta
- Pour the flour out on the countertop or a large cutting board. (I like to use a flexible plastic cutting board; it makes the whole process easier – explained below)
- With your fingers, create a crater in the center of the flour, large enough to hold the eggs and olive oil – make sure it’s big enough for all that liquid!
- Put the eggs, egg yolk, olive oil and salt into the crater.
- Using a fork, gently whisk the eggs, mixing in a bit of flour with each movement. Be wary of the eggs making a break for it over the flour wall!
- As the flour becomes incorporated enough that the eggs won’t flash mob on the countertop, start to use your hands to mix the dough, kneading it into a compact ball. It should end up plastic but dry enough to roll into a ball that doesn’t stick to anything. No need to knead it as long as a wheat-based dough; there is no gluten to work with.
- Roll the dough into a ball, then into a cylinder.
- Cut the cylinder in half and place one piece to the side.
- Flour the cutting board (you can use your countertop if it won’t be damaged by the knife you use to cut the pasta strips, but I prefer a flexible plastic cutting board – it makes it easier to handle the pasta later).
- Press the cylinder into a flat rectangle.
- Roll out the dough as thin as you can – you want the shorter edge to be about as long as you want your pasta strips. Go really thin – the pasta thickens up a bit when you cook it, and if you make it too thick, it will take longer in camp to cook through.
- Using a thin plastic cutting board or something else as a guide, cut the pasta strips with a thin knife, making sure each piece separates from the one next to it. Don’t press much on the cutting board you are using as a guide; if you do, the dough will be harder to remove from the surface below.
- The pasta should be easy to remove or slide off the cutting board; move it to another surface so you can repeat with the other half of the dough.
- OR: I like to use three soft plastic cutting boards for this (they commonly come in a set of three or set of four) – one for each half of the dough and one on the top to guide the knife. This way, I can just slide the noodles off each cutting board into the boiling water, and voila, we’re cooking!
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Throw in a pinch of salt.
- Carefully drop the pasta off the cutting boards into the water (don't splash!), and boil for 2 to 3 minutes depending on the thickness (test at 2 minutes). If you opted to roll it out on the countertop, if you floured the surface, you should be able to pick it up easily with the back of a long knife. Just slide the knife under, and make sure to use the flat back of the knife to lift the pasta.
- While the pasta cooks, lay out the dehydrator trays so you can load them up quickly.
- Drain the pasta in a strainer or colander. You can rinse with cold water if you like, but it’s not necessary. If you are eating the pasta fresh at home, you might want to not rinse - it remains starchier and sauces stick to it better.
- Immediately after draining, once the pasta has cooled enough to touch, lay the pieces out on the dehydrator trays, leaving space between so they dry evenly. Do not let the pieces be touching each other. If you wait to lay the pieces out, they will begin to take the shape they have while laying in a tangled mess in the colander, and this makes it hard to lay them out on the trays. They will still dry this way, but it uses more room on the dryer trays, and more importantly, when you pack them up for the trail they will tend to poke through the plastic bag more than a handful of straight pasta pieces.
- Dehydration
- Dehydrate at 135°F for 5 to 6 hours depending on humidity, and thickness of pasta. Test a piece to make sure it’s dry all the way through. If in doubt, dry for more time.
- Take the trays out and let the pasta cool completely.
- Oven instructions
- It’s easy to dry pasta in the oven. I prefer to do this only when I will be home the whole time. With my old oven and the short drying time, I didn't find it necessary to vent. If your pasta seems to be taking a lot of time to dry, you may need to prop the door open to vent moisture.
- Preheat the oven to 150° to 175°F.
- Lay the pasta out on parchment paper-covered cookie sheets.
- Dry for 3 to 4 hours, testing for dryness.
- Storage
- Package in an airtight container. Make sure to label it with date and ingredients.
Campsite preparation
1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. No need to salt the water.
2. Put the pasta carefully in the water, cover the pot and boil for 4 to 6 minutes, depending on the thickness of the pasta. Test at 4 minutes.
3. Strain off the water, and serve with your favorite topping.
