The Best Tortilla Presses

A good tortilla press should do most of the work for you, cranking out consistently sized corn tortillas every time—without requiring too much elbow grease. We made more than a hundred corn tortillas to answer a pressing question: Which press is best?

ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America's Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.

If you like us, follow us:

[ChefJackLA]

Professional Chef here, graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Also I am an intuitive Chef. I felt I had to qualify myself to make my comments. You do not need to spend $100 on a Tortilla Press unless your making a lot of burritos. The 8 inch Victoria press is what I use in my kitchen and there is a lot more that goes into making homemade corn or flour tortillas than the press you use. I make my own tortillas for Fish, Shrimp and Beef and Chicken tacos on the 8 inch Victoria. If I'm going make my Wet Burritos I'm going go down the street and buy the homemade flour tortillas from the Tortilleria that I'm lucky enough to be so close to. Even though I would never recommend an aluminum press you used way to much dough in your demonstration.

[roospike]

I would think if you're going to use a different size tortilla press (6" vs 8" ect) you'd use a different amount of dough like you would with bread pans of different sizes. 🌾

[thelmahenriques]

Placement and size of the dough makes a big difference.

[Kindlyone]

I bought the Doña Rosa Masienda 12in press. Love it! My family refuses to eat store bought. I won’t use my other wooden or round metal presses. The Doña Rosa expensive, heavy but well worth it. I get 12in tortillas, i can make GF burritos. I make tortillas 1x week. I make a dozen quickly with this press. The makers of this press have a wonderful back story.

[gingerbardenhagen]

I have the doña Maria press from masienda in hot pink and it’s great! I also have a wooden one and your typical cast iron round one. The doña Maria is the best!
The wooden one is terrible but I bought it to try after seeing them used frequently in Mexico but not all wooden ones are built to the same quality level.
The doña style is what is used all over Oaxaca, along with one that’s 4 times bigger for tupidas.

[Kinglink]

That feeling when ATK releases a video the four days after you bought a tortilla press: "Darn".

That feeling when they name the press you picked as the Best Buy: "Nice!"

[cachecow]

Maybe a smaller ball of masa for the smaller machine?

[OwenEDell]

I use an iron skillet. Easy, effective, zero cost.

[steves]

I have the Victoria press and it's great. I did notice that the handle was attached upside down in the video. The smooth side should be facing up so it's comfortable when you press down.

[Jameson]

The best tortilla press is the one I found brand new at the thrift store for $1 & it just happened to be the Victoria brand.

[___asdgh]

The video I've been waiting for! I've definitely broken a cast iron press from pushing on it.

[carlosenriquez]

I never owned a tortilla press until I bought the Doña Rosa. I always used a Pyrex pie plate and a freezer bag on the counter. What I noticed is that all tortilla presses give you tortillas that are thinner on one end than the other. The pie plate with two wooden skewers, on the other hand, makes tortillas that are of even thickness all the way across. So Doña Rosa is just a conversation piece it's lovely but they gotta get that issue fixed.

[TitoTimTravels]

I had a large wooden press custom made, out of acacia wood, when I emigrated to the Philippines. Eventually I had a small aluminum press shipped from the US (I have to get my masa from the US anyway). The wooden one is beautiful, but they both work about the same. The main thing is you need the right size ball of dough for the press... your example looked stupid because we know that you know better. 😎

[mikegordon]

I put a penny between the plates right under the fulcrum and they press perfectly flat, victoria press.

[kellytoycow]

So glad this popped up! We were just talking about buying a new tortilla press (BF broke the handle on ours …he also broke the handle of my citrus press - he’s not allowed to touch my knives😂)

[HossamBanaja]

You have the handle mounted upside-down on the Victoria; the convex side should be facing down, like the rest of the presses. Hope it was mounted correctly for testing, because it would affect when/where the handle makes contact with the top plate, and the leverage needed to press the masa.
(On a separate note, I'm sure the Dona Rosa functions fine, but for $100 I'd expect a better paint and weld job. It looks...flaky.)

[whatseatingwayde]

In Texas, corn tortillas are the go to for street tacos, specifically two smaller vs larger and the Victoria does a great job. I regularly use the Masienda blue and yellow masa with outstanding results. If I made them every day for the family then I might justify the $95 press. Until then, the cast iron press is more than sufficient.

[andypreston]

Masienda also makes awesome masa. I've been considering this press

[bngr_bngr]

Go to a local Latino supermarket and get a tortilla Press for around $10. We don’t use fancy $100 presses.

[cahoonm]

Thank you. We tried to buy(Doña Rosa Tortilla press and their website defaulted to 2 presses with no way tto change the qtys.. We wanted one. I tried different browsers etc. Tony at tech support said at first it was a known issue and then came back and said they could not duplicate problem. They had me send screen shots. Bottom-line i am trying to buy a press and they cant set it to qty of 1.. My wife wanted it bad because of this vidoe and so we ended up having to order two,