The Best Pasta Maker for Home Cooks

If you’ve been reading our Critics’ Picks stories for a while, you know that we usually round up the best picks from other top sites (like Wirecutter, Cook’s Illustrated, Serious Eats, and more). That was our plan when we set out to find the best pasta maker, but we ran into a problem. See, some sites haven’t gotten around to testing pasta makers just yet, and the ones that had kept picking the same brands and models. Which means our normal format would feel very (very!) redundant. Always ready to improvise, we switched things up a little.

While the format may look a little different to you, these are the very best pasta makers (manual and electric) out there. They’re the machines that other reviewers and Kitchn editors alike love.

This is the best manual pasta maker, according to Cook’s Illustrated, The Spruce, and many pasta pros. Its settings are easy to adjust and can cut all sorts of noodles — wide or narrow, thick or thin. It’s known as the Ferrari of the pasta-maker world, and that should tell you everything you need to know.

Note: The other top name when it comes to manual pasta makers is Imperia. It tends to be a little harder to adjust than the Marcato, but still makes perfectly cut noodles every time. Plus, we love that Imperia models come with a plate that helps guide the dough into the rollers.

Hand-cranking your noodles isn’t for everyone. If you want an electric machine that’ll do nearly all of the work for you, you want a Philips. (Either this machine or the Philips Compact Pasta and Noodle Maker, which is half the size and price). Just measure out your flour, add water, and the machine gets to work mixing and kneading. In just 15 minutes, it extrudes spaghetti, fettuccini, penne, or lasagna sheets. And if you want something more exciting, you can also add eggs, herbs, or veggies.

Splurge pick: Our Editor-in-Chief is newly obsessed with the Phillips Smart Pasta Maker Plus, which is a bit of a splurge but actually tells you how much liquid to add based on the amount of flour you load into the machine.

A middle ground between the other two options on this list, the KitchenAid set still requires a lot of hands-on pasta work, but at least you don’t have to do the cranking yourself. (The motor from your stand mixer turns the rollers, so that you can focus on feeding and catching the dough.) It comes with three rollers: one with eight thickness settings to help you get your six-inch sheets ready, one to cut spaghetti, and one for fettuccine. If you’re not looking to add another large gadget to your cabinets, this is a good bet.

Do you have a pasta maker? Which one is it? Do you like it?