So, you’re trying to go beyond the bag of Barilla from your local grocery store and make your own pasta? Welcome to the world of home pasta-making. It is an arduous journey, but one that will reward you with freshness and deliciousness, making it hard to go back to boxed pasta. If you’ve dabbled with pasta-making even a little bit, you’ll know that drying your pasta is an important step in the process. After all, nobody likes wet and sloppy pasta!
Back in the day, people used to dry pasta outdoors, similar to clothes on lines. However, people now have the option to dry their pasta indoors using a drying pasta rack. Drying racks have made it convenient to make pasta at home and allow folks to enjoy an authentic Italian meal, anywhere.
As with most products, there’s a plethora of choices with pasta drying racks. So which are the best ones? How do they rank in the factors people look at when choosing the right drying rack for themselves? Let’s take a look at some of the best pasta drying racks.
Marcato is an Italian kitchen products and accessories manufacturer that has operated since the 1930s. They specialize in Pasta-related products and are clearly a great choice for a pasta drying rack because of this.
The Atlas comes with 16 dowels that attach to the central column. It is also accompanied by a “multi-purpose wand” that can pick up pasta and move it to hang onto the dowels. It is made of steel and stands at a height of 18.5 inches. The steel composition makes it a durable product, likely to withstand heavy pasta-loads at high frequencies.
This product comes from a specialty pasta-products manufacturer, and therefore is of high quality. The steel composition is an obvious winner for durability, and the multi-purpose wand is a nice little accessory. Another cool feature is that you can customize the color of the dowels based on availability.
KitchenAid is a manufacturer of kitchen appliances and accessories since 1919. They make various products including appliances such as microwave ovens and refrigerators, and accessories such bakeware and cookware. They are a household brand and known for producing quality products.
The KitchenAid KPDR pasta drying rack has a steel frame and base, with polycarbonate rods (dowels) where the pasta can be placed, it also comes with a wand that facilitates the pasta transfer. It stands at 18 inches tall, and the arms extend to 17 inches wide, allowing for good spacing between the pasta. It promotes fast and even drying of pasta up to 4 lbs in weight.
If you’re looking for a quality product that will do the job quickly and evenly on a large batch of pasta, the KitchenAid KPDR is the way to go. The polycarbonate rods can also make it look like a showpiece if not stowed away.
Norpro is a kitchenware supplier operating out of the Pacific Northwest. They have been in the business of manufacturing quality kitchenware for over 40 years, and are a popular choice in the Pasta sector. In addition to drying racks, they also sell Pasta rollers.
The Norpro 1048 is a wooden rack with a strong base, and 4 dowels that cut through holes in the central column, creating 8 arms where pasta can be hung to dry. The 8 arms are conveniently separated from each other allowing uninterfered drying across the board. The drying rack also stands tall (at 16.5 inches) so works well with drying those tall strands.
This a good choice for overall use, it’s a tall pasta drying rack with up to 8 arms (dowels) to hang your pasta over and stands tall enough. It also has a pretty slick look according to me, that would go well in most kitchens. Based on customer feedback, it also seems to be easy to assemble/disassemble after use.
Bellemain is a manufacturer/seller of kitchen accessories aimed at making life easier for home chefs. Their focus is on creating easy to use, hassle-free products, boosting convenience for their customers.
The Bellemain Large Wood Pasta drying rack is a stylish looking wooden pasta rack designed to hold larger quantities of pasta. With a wide, sturdy, base, it can support drying up to 8 servings at once making it a sound choice for people who want to batch-cook. It has a height of 16.5 inches so you are still able to dry those longer strands of pasta without touching the counter top.
If you’re hosting a party and want to cook up large amounts, this is the drying rack for you. It’s sturdy, and looks great as well. The dowels are also easily removable (and insertable), so it’s not a hassle for storage and cleaning.
Eppicotispai is a brand selling various pasta-making tools and accessories. Check out their page on Amazon for other interesting products such including Pizza Pans, and Pastry Wheels.
The Eppicotispai EP 102 drying rack is the closet of pasta drying racks. Given its even spacing of dowels from each other, it’s the perfect choice if you’re picky about your pasta strands being equivalently separately from each other. Unlike the standing bases described before, it contains wooden stick-inserts into a rod in the back, as opposed to a central column.
This product is ideal if you are worried about the pasta touching and interrupting the drying process, or if you’re making various different kinds of pasta in the same quantities, and need the same amount of space for each type. The beechwood material also makes it look pretty nice too.
Wandaffull is an online brand selling various products on Amazon.
The floating pasta drying rack is a unique product in this list. It comes with a set of horizontal rods, attached to a base, which has a clamp on it. The clamp allows the rack to be set up anywhere, requiring no counter space. You can secure it onto a cabinet handle, or a refrigerator door, or anywhere you like.
The Wandaffull rack can be used for drying pasta, reusable bags, and even herbs. It can be secured anywhere and therefore makes it a great multipurpose tool to add to your kitchen/home.
Eppicotispai is a brand selling various pasta-making tools and accessories. Check out their page on Amazon for other interesting products such including Pizza Pans, and Pastry Wheels.
The X-Large Natural Beechwood Collapsible pasta drying rack has a central base, with rods sticking out on either side of the base, like a walk-in closet. It provides more than 20-square feet of pasta real estate, allowing for large batch cooking, and for good spacing as well. It is made of natural beechwood, so it looks really good as well.
This is a good choice for customers looking to get the most drying space for their buck. The double prongs give you a lot of space to dry your pasta. It’s great for drying the same type of noodles in large quantities.
iPstyle is a kitchen-accessory seller providing a variety of products ranging from spoons and cutlery, to baking trays.
The iPstyle scratch drying rack is made of ABS environmental friendly plastic. It contains 10 dowels/arms and is completely collapsible into one cylindrical heap (as pictured), which makes it fantastic for storage. What makes it a winner though is the price. At around $11, it’s a hard one to beat and does the job as well as other quality products.
While the price is obviously a stand-out factor for this pasta drying rack, the ease of storage, and the lack of assembly/disassembly makes this a hassle-free product. Customers seem to be satisfied with the function as well, with many saying this does a great job at drying pasta.
Weston sells a variety of household and kitchen items on Amazon including meat grinders and juicers.
Their Bamboo Pasta Drying Rack is an interesting one. The polished-esque finish makes for an interesting vintage look for a drying rack. It has ten arms and is 16 inches tall. Likely not the ideal choice for people wanting to cook and dry large amounts all at once, but great option for people who like a classy look and cook in smaller batches.
Best of all, it has a great price (currently <$10) and so it is an awesome budget option as well. If you’re looking for a neat addition to your kitchen, that dries modest amounts of pasta (perhaps a dinner for two), look no further.
CucinaPro offers specialty housewares products to bring customers’ favorite worldly cuisines into the comfort of their kitchens. They specialize in pasta tools, and other bakeware such as waffle and crepe makers.
The CucinaPro drying rack has a unique aesthetic. Like some of the other drying racks, it does have a central column and a base. However, the dowel arrangement is quite different from the other racks. It has four quadrants of dowels, with the adjacent quadrant dowels pointing in perpendicular directions, and the diagonally opposite dowels in parallel directions. It’s a unique appealing design and can be a conversation starter in your kitchen!
In addition to its unique look, this product is functionally useful as well. The 16 sturdy rods provide ample space and weight capabilities. It’s dishwasher safe as well which is a big plus for cleaning.
So the word is in. If you want to make your own pasta at home, and don’t want the chore of manually drying it on a flat surface, invest in a drying rack. We have a variety of recommendations depending on the factor that’s most important to you, and our general top-10 list.
Each of the 10 best pasta drying racks mentioned above will do the job just fine. If you have purchased and used one of our recommendations, let us know what you think of them in the comment section below. What is your favorite one? How has it improved your pasta game? We would love to hear from you!