The 7 Best Pasta Makers of 2024, Tested in a Real Kitchen

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Making homemade noodles is easier than you think

Laura Denby is a food, home, and lifestyle writer who specializes in creating thorough and analytical product reviews to help shoppers make more informed purchasing decisions. She has a Culinary Arts diploma from the Institute of Culinary Education and a WSET Level 2 Award in Wine and Spirits. Her work has appeared in leading food and lifestyle publications like PEOPLE, Food & Wine, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, Verywell Family, Southern Living, and more.

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People / Russell Kilgore

If food is your love language, there’s no better date night than putting on some music, sharing a bottle of wine, and making homemade pasta with your special someone. Along with some nice wine glasses, a pasta machine is great for anniversary dinners, or even just date nights at home.

In search of the best pasta makers available, we put 14 leading models through a series of tests to determine functionality, ease of use, and overall value. While there are a few different styles to choose from — tabletop, extruder, and attachment — the best pasta maker for you will depend on how hands-on you like to get in the kitchen. Keep reading for the best pasta makers we tested from KitchenAid, Philips, Imperia, Marcato, and more.

Crank and clamp are extremely secure

Pasta had a consistent shape, size, and thickness

Affordable

Cutter clogged a bit with spaghetti

Making pasta shouldn’t be a complicated process; this simple machine proves that. The manual model yielded some of the most consistent pasta we made, and it was easy to use and clean. We love that this model has a firm and sturdy clamp, which helps it remain steady on the countertop throughout the entire process. The handle is easy to hold, and it locks securely into the base, so it never falls out while you’re cranking. Removable combs under the cutters are also super easy to clean.

This model comes with three different cutting shapes — fettuccine, spaghetti, and lasagna — but additional accessories are available to purchase separately. We found that it yielded pasta that was consistent in size, shape, and thickness, and we didn’t notice any fraying whatsoever throughout the process. It comes with 15 settings, and we had no trouble switching between them.

Type: Manual tabletop | Settings: 15 | Weight: 5.4 pounds | Dishwasher-Safe Parts: No

Crank and clamp are extremely secure

10 settings are clearly marked

Compatible with a wide range of additional attachments

Motor and crank designs are a bit cumbersome

Expensive

This automated pasta maker allows you to make fresh pasta quickly and efficiently, thanks to the motor that speeds up the cutting process. Just like the manual version of the same machine, this option sits tightly against the countertop and doesn’t bounce or wiggle while in use. The crank is easy to maneuver, and the dough moves easily through the press and cutters: It yielded consistent dough with perfect size, shape, and thickness.

We found that it was particularly easy to clean thanks to the removable combs that come right out when it’s time to wash them. While it’s a useful and efficient pasta maker, the price for this model is considerably higher than its manual counterpart. This is a great option if you’re looking to make large batches of pasta quickly, but if not, we advise you to stick to the more affordable manual version.

Type: Electric tabletop | Settings: 10 | Weight: 7.7 pounds | Dishwasher-Safe Parts: No

Easy-to-use attachments securely screw into your KitchenAid mixer

Super easy to clean

7 clearly-marked settings

You need to own a KitchenAid mixer in order to use it

One of the best parts of owning a KitchenAid stand mixer is the ability to take advantage of all the attachments it’s compatible with. Our favorite? The KitchenAid pasta maker attachment set. This three-piece set is one of the easiest to use of all we tried, and it yielded some of the most consistent, toothsome pasta. Simply screw the attachment into your KitchenAid, turn it to the appropriate speed, and start rolling.

We love how clearly etched each setting is, making it obvious what speed you’re on and easy to switch to the next one. We didn’t notice any jamming, fraying, or clogging whatsoever — throughout the pasta-making process, the dough moved effortlessly through the machine with hardly any user intervention. We were super impressed by the quality of pasta that it yielded, too. The cutters are strong and durable, so we didn’t have to separate any pasta by hand after the cutting process was complete.

Type: Attachment | Settings: 7 | Weight: 2.86 pounds | Dishwasher-Safe Parts: No

Compact and easy to store

Super easy to operate

Cuts cleanly and yields consistently shaped pasta

Occasional jams

A little cumbersome to clean

This attachment-style pasta roller is more affordable than the branded KitchenAid one, but we found that it delivers the same great results. It cuts two shapes of pasta — fettuccine and spaghetti — easily and cleanly. We love that it’s simple to insert into your KitchenAid (or other) mixer and features easy-to-use settings.

The roller and cutter pieces sit side by side, so you can easily feed a batch of dough through the roller and then transfer it to the cutter; no need to swap out the blades or switch attachments. We had no trouble cutting spaghetti and fettuccine, and we found that each shape came out consistently both in size and shape. Though we did notice a bit of jamming here and there, the issue worked itself out as we continued to run the machine.

Type: Attachment | Settings: 7 | Weight: 3.5 pounds | Dishwasher-Safe Parts: No

Crank and clamp are extremely secure

Doesn’t take up too much space on the countertop

User manual was confusing and complicated

This affordable machine is simple and streamlined, and it’s exactly what you’d want from a tabletop pasta maker. The clamp is secure enough to hold the product down tightly so it doesn’t wobble around the countertop while you’re pressing and cutting. During our testing, we found that the six settings worked efficiently, and it was easy to switch back and forth.

Overall, we love this pasta maker’s consistency — each pasta shape we made came out in consistent shapes and sizes, with no clogging, sticking, or jamming at all. It’s a basic, easy-to-use machine that helps make the pasta-making process much more efficient. We love that the handle feels ergonomic when turning, but we don’t love the fact that it doesn’t lock into place, and we found the manual a bit confusing. On the upside, this machine and its parts are dishwasher-safe for easier clean-up.

Type: Manual tabletop | Settings: 6 | Weight: 7.6 pounds | Dishwasher-Safe Parts: Yes

Set comes with extra attachments for different pasta shapes

Cutters slide into place easily

Dough got caught in the grooves of the cutters

Handle doesn’t lock in place and falls out occasionally

This versatile machine features extra attachments that allow you to make additional pasta shapes with the same machine. It’s a manual tabletop-style pasta maker, and we love that the clamp is tight enough to keep it securely in place while you’re working.

Though we found that a little bit of dough got stuck in the grooves while cutting spaghetti, the machine doesn’t jam, so the clogging actually works itself out as you continue to feed dough through the cutters. We found that the dough stayed flat and straight throughout the process and didn’t notice any fraying, wrinkling, or sticking. It yielded consistent pasta while being easy to use and clean. Our only hang-up? Since the handle doesn’t lock in place, we noticed that it fell out of the machine a few times, which made it feel a bit cumbersome.

Type: Manual tabletop | Settings: 6 | Weight: 5.6 pounds | Dishwasher-Safe Parts: Yes

Easy to operate

Cuts cleanly and yields consistently shaped pasta

Shape discs are easy to switch out

Large and heavy machine

This extruder-style pasta maker produced consistently high-quality pasta each time we used it. With very little effort required, the quick and efficient machine yielded perfectly formed, perfectly cut shapes that didn’t require any separating by hand after the fact. In fact, it made some of the best spaghetti and penne of any of the machines that we tested.

We love how easy the buttons are to control; it’s a completely automated machine that can be paused or stopped at any time throughout the process. Throughout our testing, we found this to be a super functional and reliable machine for anyone looking to make pasta quickly with minimal effort. Although we love how this machine automates the pasta-making process, it’s important to remember that it’s a bit large and bulky.

Type: Extruder | Settings: 3 | Weight: 10.36 pounds | Dishwasher-Safe Parts: Yes

People / Russell Kilgore

One of the benefits of making fresh pasta at home is that you’re completely in control of what ingredients you put in. That means you can skip the preservatives or added sodium and select the type of flour you want to use. Fresh pasta requires the use of eggs, which means there’s typically more fat in it than dry pasta, but it also has more protein. Additionally, fresh pasta has a higher water content, which means it has slightly fewer calories than boxed pasta.

While the ingredients necessary to make your own pasta are super affordable, keep in mind that it is a time-consuming pursuit. You can certainly make a batch of pasta for less money than it costs to buy a box of pasta at the grocery store, but when you consider the time commitment as well as the cost of a pasta maker, it’s usually cheaper to purchase a box of store-bought pasta.

Making pasta at home is a fun and rewarding project, but it can also be time-consuming and messy. Having a dedicated pasta maker can help make it faster and easier, and the best product for you depends on how automated you want the process to be.

If you enjoy the hands-on experience of making your own pasta, a tabletop style is best. We found that the easiest tabletop pasta makers to use are the kind that have a silicone or rubber grip on the bottom, which helps them remain sturdy and stable on the table. Having a secure clamp is essential to these products’ overall ease of use.

Alternatively, extruder-style pasta makers are extremely easy to use — they automatically mix and cut the pasta dough for you. This hands-off process is great for making large batches in a small amount of time, but we found that these machines are more challenging to clean. They’re understandably a bit more complicated, which can make them more difficult to use than a standard tabletop machine.

As is the case with most kitchen gadgets like milk frothers, coffee makers, and the like, price is a major factor in selecting the best pasta maker for you. Depending on the style you select, these machines can range in price from around $35 to $300. We found that extruder styles are the most expensive, while manual tabletop styles, like the Imperia Pasta Machine, are the most affordable.

People / Russell Kilgore

To find the best pasta makers, we tried 14 of the top-performing models, including electric and manual tabletop-style machines, extruders, and attachments. We used each pasta maker in a real kitchen to create a variety of homemade noodles and scored them on the following criteria:

Laura Denby is a contributing shopping writer for PEOPLE with a degree in culinary arts from the Institute of Culinary Education and a degree in journalism from Penn State. After years of working as a professional chef and caterer throughout NYC and the Hamptons, Laura now focuses on testing and reviewing kitchen and home products to help readers become more comfortable and efficient in the kitchen. You can find more of her product reviews in Food & Wine, FoodNetwork.com, Forbes Vetted, and Better Homes and Gardens. For this article, Laura pored over PEOPLE Tested results from our test kitchen and used her own experience to inform our top picks.

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