Pasta Tools How-To: Working With Your Brass Pasta Cutter

If you've ever compared a pasta edge cut with a kitchen knife to one cut with a proper brass pasta cutter, you'll know immediately why these tools are worth having. Cheaper cutters tend to leave a blurred, uneven edge — brass, paired with a wooden handle, gives a clean, precise line every time, and a fluted wheel adds a decorative ridge that's genuinely difficult to replicate by hand. This one tool covers more ground than almost anything else in your kit, from simple ribbons to filled pasta edges. Here's how to get the most out of it.

Ingredients

• Egg pasta dough or semolina pasta dough, depending on the shape

Tools

• Pasta machine

• Brass pasta cutter (fluted, straight-edge, or double-sided)

• Wooden dowel (for corone)

• Ruler or straight edge (optional, for even strips)

Prep your dough

Roll your dough out to an even thickness — thinner for delicate filled shapes, slightly thicker for anything you'll roll around a dowel. An even sheet matters more here than with most tools, since any unevenness will carry straight through into your cut.

Cut straight ribbons

For tagliatelle or pappardelle, run the straight edge of your cutter along a ruler for perfectly even strips, or freehand it for a more rustic look. A double-wheel cutter set to a fixed width makes this nearly foolproof — every strip comes out identical without measuring each one individually.

Cut fluted strips

For a decorative wavy edge — like mafaldine or pavoncelle de Sardegna — switch to the fluted wheel and cut wider ribbons. If you're making pavoncelle, gently squeeze the bottom of each strip after cutting so the thinner, fluted portion cooks in the same time as the rest.

Cut shapes for filled pasta

Cut sheeted dough into evenly-sized squares or triangles as a base for ravioli or other filled shapes — a ruler or simple cardboard template helps keep everything consistent, which matters more than it seems once you're cooking a batch and want even timing across every piece.

A note on pressure

Let the weight of the tool do the work rather than pressing down hard — brass cuts cleanly with light, even pressure. If your edges come out torn rather than clean, that's usually the first thing to adjust.

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Want to practice this hands-on? Join our Filled Pasta Workshop →

Ready to shop? See our toothed cutter, double cutter wheel, or the adjustable cutter wheel for precision-width cutting.

Want to practice this hands-on? Join our Filled Pasta Workshop →