Shop Essential Italian Tools & Equipment
Welcome! Here you’ll find some of my favorite must-have or highly recommended tools for baking and cooking some of our favorite recipes. Please note that if you make a purchase, we earn a small commission (see my disclosure policy.)
Pizza Making Tools
Investing in a few tools like a pizza stone or steel and a kitchen scale are essential for that perfectly crispy, foldable crust, elevating your dough from good to “pizzeria-level perfect pizza“. Trust me, you won’t regret it!
Pizza peels are essential for launching pizza and retrieving the pizza after it is baked. I personally prefer a wooden peel for launching the pizza and a metal peel one for taking the pizza out of the oven. I use an instant read thermometer (IR thermometer) to check the temperature of my pizza steel, although some prefer to use a baking stone (see Serious Eats for a discussion of the comparison).
Pasta Making Tools
I love to make homemade pasta – it’s fun, cheap, and gets easier the more you do it.
I like Marcato pasta machines because they are made in Italy and were always known as the best, at least according to the Italian ladies in the old neighborhood. Because I like to make homemade sfogliatelle, I also own a motor for the pasta machine. I use a standing mixer and sometimes just a large bowl to mix dough, but a food processor is another good option. Other optional but fun considerations are also shown above.
Bread Making Tools
There is nothing like homemade bread! My favorite thing to do on a lazy kitchen day. These help make great bread at home!
These are a variety of tools I use for making sourdough, Italian bread, and sandwich bread using a pullman loaf pan. My bench knife is a favorite, not only for slicing through the dough with ease but also for effortlessly flipping it and tidying up the countertops. The granite wear roasters are an outstanding, budget-friendly, and featherlight choice that significantly enhances oven spring, ensuring a superior bake every time.
Tomato Sauce Tools
Here are my favorite tools for either canning sauce (using Ball’s recipe) or making a freezer friendly homemade pasta sauce.
The steam canner has been my most exciting recent purchase (I LOVE IT), since they are more efficient than conventional canners. Steam canners require much less water (since the jars are NOT immersed in the water), they heat up faster, and cool down more quickly (although if you are canning at high altitude, do more research before buying as these canners use much less water and more may be required for extended canning times).