Instead of buying pasta from the grocery store making your own can add some real flair to your homemade pasta dishes. Along with being a great skill for home cooks it's also fresher, which means a tastier dish! While making the dough isn't rocket science, getting it to the correct consistency, thickness and shape is a bit of an art. A decent pasta maker, like the ever-popular Marcato Atlas 150, will make all the difference. Take a look at our selection -- from lasagne to linguine, there's an option to help.
With a history dating back to the Thirties, the Marcato Atlas range has been helping people cook pasta at home since 1965. An Italian classic, this model is a perfect quality option. Straight out of the box you can use this machine to make lasagne, fettuccine, and taglioni, but what's really exciting is that there are 12 further pasta cutting accessories you can buy to make even more types.
The Atlas machine's rollers have a rough surface which means sauce sticks better to the pasta, making for tastier meals. Unlike rival machines, there are no less than ten different thickness settings, ranging from 0.6mm to 4.8mm. The Atlas even comes complete with a pasta cutter included.
This machine can be used as your standard pasta dough roller, with its easy click adjustable dial, you can select up to nine different thickness measurements. Also, you can make spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, and angel hair pastas thanks to the three different blade attachments included.
The easy crank handle is removable for easier storage options, but if you make your own pasta often, you may be interested to note this machine has pre-cut holes drilled into the base. That's so that you could mount this onto a kitchen work surface, countertop, island or even kitchen table. This means you'd never have to fuss with a clamp again.
Another classic Italian marque, CucinaPro's Imperia pasta makers are made of good quality materials and boast sturdy, dependable construction. Created from heavy-duty shiny chrome-plated steel, this machine has a comfortable wooden handle, a steadfast clamp, and a secure lock adjustment dial.
You can buy additional attachments for the Imperia 150 that will allow you to create other pasta shapes, but on its own, this maker can roll out pasta and create thin spaghetti and wide fettucini noodles.
This is another option that can both roll out dough and cut linguine, spaghetti, fettuccini, etc. iSiler's pasta maker has smooth rollers for consistent results with a regulating knob boasting nine settings for different dough thickness from 0.3mm to 2.6mm. As well as controlling the thickness, the iSiler's cutter can cut to two different widths -- 2mm or 6.6mm.
With a design that comes apart and made of food-grade aluminum alloy, the rollers and cutter can be washed under the tap with a gentle detergent for peace of mind in the hygiene department. It boasts a sturdy design with an included table clamp to secure it to worktops. The clamp can be attached to surfaces from 1cm to 4.5cm deep.
The Cestari machine has a unique feature of a patented heavy-duty suction base so you don't have to worry about finding the perfect area to attach the machine with a clamp (although one is also included). The body is made of mirror-polished chrome-plated steel while the rollers and cutters made of anodized aluminum.
With this pasta machine, you can make fettuccine and tagliolini, as well as flat dough sheets for lasagne, ravioli, cannelloni, tortellini, and anything else you can manipulate into shape. The 9-position dial controls the dough roller, which means you can regulate the thickness of your pasta from 0.7mm to 3.5mm.
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As you can see from our selection above, pasta makers are very much cut from the same mold, but some do boast features and functionality that set them apart from the competition, like the clever Cestari machine with it's skid-proof, non-clip sucker base that saves the need to mess around with a clamp.
Others, like the iSiler and the OxGord makers, might appeal for their ability to take them apart so that the rollers and cutters can be adequately cleaned, rather than just wiped down.
Those are all great pasta makers, but our overall recommendation is the Marcato Atlas 150. The fact it offers ten different thickness settings and the option to purchase additional pasta cutting attachments means as you get more accomplished in the pasta-making department, this machine can help you improve further. A design classic in its own right, it's the pasta maker your Italian nonna would want on her kitchen counter.