Gourmet pasta makers were designed to offer a cost effective functional alternative. Available is a powerful Gourmet Electric Pasta Motor which makes these manual pasta makers electric in seconds. At a minimum, a manual pasta maker should come with a clamp, hand crank, and a pasta cutter. All of the models in our list come with these standard accessories — even the modestly priced models. Typically the pasta cutter makes it possible to make spaghetti and fettuccini noodles although we do have some models that can also make angel hair pasta.

Once you’ve rolled out your pasta dough, you can use the beachwood rolling pin to score lines into the surface. From here, you can easily pull the dough apart, creating uniform strands of pasta the artisanal way. The rolling pins are made in Italy, and there are different models for making spaghetti, fettuccine, tagliatelle and pappardelle. You can, of course, go the old-school, hands-on way and make fresh pasta with just a rolling pin and a knife; you don’t actually need the best pasta maker from our tests if you want to make pasta tonight. But using a manual pasta maker allows you to achieve consistently perfect pasta sheets for lasagna, ravioli, and noodles of all kinds.

They should include a vice to keep it secured to your table or kitchen counter. While some people are content to just create sheets of pasta, others may wish to create shapes or adjust the width to create wider noodles like linguini or fettuccini. If you want to play with the width or create shapes, then look for a pasta maker that comes with included die attachments. Additionally, check the roller adjustments to ensure that you can manipulate the thickness of your pasta. Specifically, and for best electric pasta makers like the Philips Pasta Maker, be sure to review the upgraded features that are included on the control panel. La Monferrina is the other half of the Imperia company (also known as Imperia & Monferrina) which specializes in electric and professional pasta machines.

Unless the machine mixes and kneads the dough, the process will start by preparing the dough by hand, which includes mixing, kneading, rolling, flattening, folding, and resting. Once it’s ready, the user applies the desired thickness setting before loading the dough into the machine. After it’s flattened, the dough is run through again, this time using a cutting attachment to make the final product.

Some manual options will also offer a motor attachment for those who want to speed up the process. The heavy-duty attachments securely attach to the front of the stand mixer and rolls automatically when the mixer is turned on which eliminates the need for a hand crank. That means you can use one hand to feed Marcato in the dough and the other to catch it! Using this type of pasta roller is faster and easier than using a manual maker, and it also allows you to make longer sheets of pasta at once since you have both hands to work with. The setting knob is easy to use — it pulls out and turns to your desired setting.

While it’s best to use the clamp if you can, the Marcato is heavy enough to be used without it in a pinch. Like all the machines, the hand crank detaches so you can move it between the different cutting and rolling attachments. But unlike the other machines, the attachments on the Marcato slid into place with ease. Most pasta makers come equipped with standard shapes like spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, or lasagna. However, many offer the option of purchasing additional attachments for a variety of pasta shapes and sizes.