If you want to make fresh pasta at home, it’s possible to do it by hand-rolling and cutting but it would take far too long to make a big batch and would require a lot of effort, possibly making you feel like it’s not worth it. You can choose to instead buy a manual or electric pasta maker machine to make it easy and speed up the process. In this article, we focus on the best electric pasta maker reviews to help you buy the right one for your needs.
Manual pasta makers great for home use and very inexpensive but it does limit you to making smaller quantities and can take a lot of practice to get right. The roller type is most common among hand-cranked pasta makers, but if you want to make a lot of shaped pasta you’ll be better off with an electric machine because you can really speed up the process and it doesn’t strain your arm because there’s no manual cranking. You will also have two hands free to guide the pasta dough in and handle the pasta as it comes out.
What is the Best Electric Pasta Maker?
To answer this question, let’s examine how an electric pasta machine works. While there are many electric pasta machines for home use that are the roller type, a few are the extruder type where prepared dough is pushed through die cast discs to make a few different shapes. Some pasta machines are the full cycle type, where you add the ingredients and it mixes the dough, and then automatically feeds it through for rolling into sheets or cut ribbons, or for tubular shaping. Getting the ingredient measurements for the dough correct is important for this type of machine because too wet can gum up the roller or extruder.
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You could also consider getting a stand mixer that comes with an extruder attachment if you use the mixer to knead the pasta dough along with doing a whole host of other jobs. We’ll cover those attachments in this article too.
If you think you won’t make pasta that often, you can save your dollars and buy a hand crank pasta machine.
The following automatic pasta maker reviews should help you buy the best machine for your needs.
Table of Contents
Electric Pasta Roller Machine
With this type of machine, don’t wash or put any parts in the dishwasher. Just wait for any bits to dry, then brush the teeth and rollers off. Wipe the rest of the machine down with a damp cloth.
Marcato Atlas Pasta Machine with Electric Motor Attachment
This unit boasts a sleek and stylish design that blends well with most kitchen decor. Its body, made from chrome and nickel-plated steel, augments the machine’s look as well as its sturdiness. It comes with a clamp as well, so there’s no risk of the unit jumping about while in use.
Since the thickness of your pasta is vital, this unit comes with an effortlessly adjustable dial that controls the thickness of the pasta. You get 10 different thickness settings. The cutter attachment gives you two types of pasta other than the uncut lasagna sheet.
What’s unique about this machine is the powerful 110 volts motor that makes it simple and painless to roll the dough for your lasagna, spaghetti, or fettuccine while leaving your hands free to guide the dough through the roller and cutter. Although this is probably the best electric pasta machine for the home, unlike its hand crank sibling version, there are no other cutter attachments that you can get for it.
In addition, this pasta machine comes with an adjustable table stand making it easy to be used anywhere on the kitchen counter-top. You also get a cookbook of Italian recipes.
Although many people love the machine, it is only capable of generating three different types of pasta, which is quite limited, but it is frequently sold at quite a discount compared to its competitors, so its quality and performance are what you should be looking at.
CucinaPro 160 Imperia Pasta Presto Electric Pasta Machine
Mechanically, the unit boasts a motor power of 85 watts and 6-thickness settings that makes pasta making quicker and more efficient. The machine features a 5-3/4 inch wide built-in roller and a maximum roller opening of 1.99mm for making sheets of pasta, and fettuccine and tagliatelle types of pasta using the two built-in cutters. For more types of pasta, there are several other attachments that you can use. You can make spaghetti, angel hair, ravioli, gnocchi, pappardelle, etc.
Besides generating good quality pasta sheets, the unit sits well on the kitchen countertop, making it easier to set up.
If you’re in a hurry to make pasta, you should know that it works slowly at one speed, but this is what ensures flawless rolled pasta. It’s also good for making pie crusts, wonton wrappers, and more. It is quite pricey, so make sure it is something you will use on a regular basis.
Marcato Atlas Pasta Fresca Machine
The kneading chamber can process up to 1.7 lbs of dough. Just add your dry and wet ingredients and turn it on and within 3 minutes you have a nice ball of dough. You can let it rest for a little bit and then use the included pasta roller attachment to press the dough into sheets for lasagna or for cutting later into other types of pasta.
You can adjust the thickness settings to any of 10 levels. Then switch the roller to one of the two included cutter attachments to cut your pasta sheets into fettuccine or tagliolini ribbons.
The machine uses a high torque 170-watt motorized pasta roller and you can make more than just pasta with it. Try making pizza, pressed cookies, doughnuts, dim sum wrappers, tortillas, and more.
Electric Pasta Extruder Machine
Philips Pasta and Noodle Maker Plus
Precisely engineered to make pasta dough and then deliver perfect pasta, the Philips automatic pasta maker mixer extruder utilizes just about 1600 pounds of pressure to speedily extrude shaped pasta without working the pasta dough too hard, which is essentially ideal for perfect texture and taste. You can also add other ingredients to make a more nutritious or flavorful pasta, like spinach, herbs, eggs or vegetable juices.
The machine features four unique shaping discs for spaghetti, penne, fettuccine, and lasagna. If these are not enough for you, you could get the Philips Avance Collection 4-in 1 attachments model that comes with 4 more discs to make Angel Hair, Pappardelle, thick spaghetti & Tagliatelli.
All the removable parts are dishwasher-safe. In addition, the unit comes with specially designed cleaning tools that match the shaping discs. This makes quick hand cleaning much easier. At the bottom of the Philips Pasta Maker, there is a drawer where you can conveniently keep both the discs and the cleaning tools. You also get a recipe book when you buy this machine.
Based on its capabilities as one of the best automatic pasta maker options, it under $300 price is fair for this product. The only thing to be careful of with this item is that the dough should not be sticky before it gets fed through the extruder, so the ratio of dry to wet ingredients (3 to 1) needs to be precise for the machine to knead. The dough has to be dryer than what you’d normally use to make it by hand.
Philips Compact Pasta and Noodle Maker
Because this model is quite a bit cheaper, you won’t be able to make pasta as fast. This machine will take roughly 18 minutes from the time you start the machine to the time it finishes extruding all the pasta. It is also only meant for making 2-3 servings at a time, i.e. about 1/2 lb.
The kneading arm inside the chamber is designed differently to account for the different type of chamber. It is a long tube with multiple angled pins to snag every bit of the ingredients and knead them together thoroughly.
As with the standard model, there are 3 extruder plates to make Spaghetti, Penne and Fettuccini, and you can experiment with adding various ingredients to boost your pasta’s flavor and nutrition value. All the detachable parts are dishwasher safe.
Hamilton Beach Electric Pasta and Noodle Maker
This machine can measure, mix, knead and extrude up to 1.8 lbs of pasta in as little as 15 minutes. With this home pasta extruder, you do not need to be a professional gourmet because it is a fully automatic pasta maker that does everything for you.
There is an internal measuring scale that easily calculates the amount of liquids you need to add based on the amount of flour you’ve already added. There are two cups provided for the wet and dry ingredients. First you add the flour, then you select either the “Quick pasta” or the “standard pasta” noodles. It will show how many cups of water or liquid to add. Add that, press “Start” and then wait for the machine to do its job.
It will first mix and knead the dough and when the consistency is right, it will automatically extrude the pasta ready for you you to cook.
If you’re in a hurry, the “quick pasta” setting just mixes the dough and extrudes without a lot of kneading, while the “standard pasta” setting does an ideal amount of kneading after the mixing.
There are 7 pasta extruder discs for spaghetti, thick spaghetti, wide noodle, lasagna, Angel hair, penne and fettuccini. There’s a drawer underneath the extruder head where you store these discs.
So you may be wondering why this Hamilton Beach model is cheaper than the Philips one if it seems more intelligent with the measuring scale. Well, the reason may be that this machine is a little less forgiving with wet and dry ratios.
The inbuilt scale seems to tell you to add too little water for the amount of flour because not only will the resulting pasta feel a bit dry, but there will also be some leftover unmixed flour in the chamber. The extruder can also time out and stop before it’s done its job. Therefore, you’ll probably find that by trial and error, you have to add a little more water to get better results. Also, it doesn’t work as well if you want to make a small quantity so it’s best to make at least 1/2 lb and freeze uncooked pasta for the next time.
All removable parts are dishwasher-safe, but dough does get stuck in a small gap that’s hard to clean out. However, considering its low price, this is quite a good automatic pasta maker.
KitchenAid Stand Mixers’ Pasta Maker Attachments
If you also want to make spaghetti and fettuccine, then get the ANTREE Pasta Maker Attachment 3 in 1 Set.
Featured image: “semola fusilli” by Edsel L is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0