If you've ever made your own pasta, you know how simple it is. Just a few high-quality ingredients and you've got the parts for almost any kind of noodle. If you swap a little of the flour for cricket powder, you get cricket pasta. 

With the addition of cricket powder, your pasta becomes a nutritional powerhouse. It's a great way to sneak some fiber and protein into buttered noodles for the kids. But even more importantly, cricket powder adds a subtle nutty flavor that goes very well pasta -- just like pine nuts and parmesan cheese.

How do I use it? Anytime I'm making pasta from scratch, I make one batch of cricket pasta and one batch of traditional pasta, just for the sake of comparison. Because there aren't many ingredients in pasta, you can definitely tell the difference, and I love it. 

I usually top it with my cricket pesto, but I also make a cold pasta and vegetable summer salad with Italian vinaigrette and hunks of mozzarella. (I'll get those recipes up ASAP.)

But pasta is infinitely adjustable; this is just a good place to start. Let me know how you make yours!   

Whole Wheat Cricket Pasta

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Cricket Pasta can be prepared however you typically make pasta. All you do is sub out some of the flour for cricket powder, and the exact amount varies based on the flavor profile you want. Whole wheat flour is a natural partner to cricket powder because it's a little more earthy than traditional semolina flour, and we think it's the ideal way to showcase the natural flavor of crickets. We really like the rougher texture and subtle nuttiness of this pasta, and use it often for more country-style Italian dishes. 

This recipe works best if you have a pasta machine to help roll out the dough, though sometimes we do it by hand when we want a workout.  

Author:

Chef Claire

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat flour - unbleached

• ½ cup Pure Cricket Powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 3 large eggs, beaten

Directions

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cricket powder, and salt until combined

2. Beat the eggs together in a separate small bowl

3. In the center of your flour mixture, create a crater and add in the eggs

4. Using a sturdy fork or spoon, slowly work the flour mixture in to the egg crater over and over, working in more flour, until you have a dense ball of dough. The dough should be slightly sticky, but remain workable. If it’s too wet, add more whole wheat flour. It should be about as dry as biscuit dough.

5. Knead this dough by hand for around 10 minutes, then cover it and set in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Overnight if you can.

6. Now you can roll out and cut the dough by hand or use a pasta machine—whichever you prefer.

Recipe Note

The dough will keep for up to two days if it's tightly sealed, but after that it dries out.

Feel free to use any type of flour you like to change up the texture and flavor.