Homemade tortillas are delicious and healthy, but they can be tricky to make if you don’t have the right equipment. For the easiest and tastiest homemade tortillas you’ve ever had, you’ll need a tortilla press to shape them. With the use of a good tortilla press, it becomes much easier to cook your tortillas to perfection.
This is because a tortilla press ensures that your tortillas are even and flat, which can be hard to accomplish when manually rolling out your dough. That said, not all tortilla presses are the same and some are significantly more effective at completing the same job.
According to Product Diggers, you’ll need to consider many details when buying a tortilla press including “consistent pressure, easy handling, durability, cost, and plate diameter.”
To help you pick the best tortilla press around, we’ll point out a few features that you should be evaluating below.
Press Material
The first thing you’ll need to think about is the press material.
The reason why this matters is that the material used to make a tortilla press usually plays a large role in how effective it is.
You’ll likely find a tortilla press made from either wood, aluminum, or cast iron. Each material has its distinct advantages and drawbacks.
Cast iron tortilla presses are the heaviest style, highly reliable, and the easiest to use. However, they require special care to ensure that they maintain their integrity over time.
Wood tortilla presses are fairly sturdy despite being the lightest variant. This comes at the cost of being prone to breakdowns and physically larger than the other two types of tortilla presses.
Aluminum tortilla presses fall somewhere in the middle, being durable like cast iron while maintaining a lighter weight like a wood press. They tend to be highly reliable, but the main drawback is that they require more force to use.
As you can see, each tortilla press is a little different. Consider what matters most to you and find a press that accommodates that need.
Tortilla Size
You should also consider what size of tortillas the press will make.
This mainly depends on the overall size of the tortilla press and its plates. Having a larger surface area gives you more flexibility to make tortillas of whatever size you’d like.
Most tortilla presses are equipped to make at least six-inch tortillas, but some can go larger. It’s also nice to have a larger working space because this gives you more room to place your masa balls.
The other part of tortilla size is the thickness of the tortilla. While any press will flatten your dough, you’ll find varying thicknesses of the resulting tortillas.
Tortillas are typically quite flat, but you can find presses that allow for a few millimeters of thickness. This will make the tortilla fluffy and is nice if you want more substance to your tortillas.
Think about what type of tortillas you’d like to devour. Do you want large and flat ones or do nice, medium-sized, and fluffy tortillas sound better?
Tortilla Quality
Another important factor is the quality of the pressed tortillas.
This is arguably the most important factor when it comes to buying a tortilla press. The bottom line is that you want a product that makes perfect tortillas. Why or how it does this is irrelevant, just as long as it does.
Your idea of a great tortilla may vary from someone else’s, so you should go with what you think is a good tortilla. If you have a press that makes tortillas you don’t like, then you aren’t going to benefit much from having it.
This is something that often comes down to price. More expensive tortilla presses are not always better, but the best models will be a little pricier and you do get your money’s worth from them.
Ability to Make Other Food
If you want flexibility from your tortilla press, then look for the ability to make other food with it.
Tortilla presses may seem like a single-use tool, but they can make more than just a corn tortilla. Just about any type of dough can be flattened. This is nice for things like flatbread, pie shells, or cookies.
If you have a versatile tortilla press, then you can get creative and use it for other crafts as well. For example, you can use one to flatten meat, make dumpling skins, create samosas, or construct several other Mexican dough-based food like empanadas, arepas, and chalupas.
This all depends on the type of tortilla press you have and what it’s capable of. Again, this largely comes down to the size of the press, but how effectively it flattens objects and how thick they are also impact what the press can do.
It’s hard to justify buying a kitchen tool for just one use, so knowing what else you’d use a tortilla press for will help encourage you to pick one up! Figure out if any other tortilla press crafts sound good to you and pick a model that will make them.
Ease of Use
Lastly, you should keep an eye out for a tortilla press that is easy to use.
As with any piece of equipment, if it’s difficult to use, then you’re likely to avoid using it. You surely have something in your pantry or closet that you never use, whether that’s a breadmaker or ice cream mixer.
Fortunately, most tortilla presses are fairly straightforward to use. The main difference here is how much effort is required to press down.
The best tortilla presses will require barely any effort from you while weaker models will necessitate as much force as possible. Easier presses do tend to be more expensive, but the time and effort that you save from using it are worth it if you make tortillas often.
A tool like a tortilla press is meant to make your life easier. If it adds extra confusion, then there’s no point in having one. Find a tortilla press that simplifies the process of making tortillas and you’ll appreciate what it can do!
Closing Thoughts
The best way to make tortillas at home is by using a good tortilla press. This is a tool designed to flatten masa dough, making a perfectly even and flat tortilla to cook.
As you can imagine, this will save you plenty of time if you eat a lot of tortillas. However, this will only happen if you use an effective tortilla press.
A few features to evaluate when picking a tortilla press include the press material, tortilla size, tortilla quality, the ability to make other food, and how easy it is to use.
Few things are as warming as a fresh tortilla made in your kitchen. Find a great tortilla press to help you make them and you’ll love how delicious your homemade tortillas are!
Nina Smith