I was at a food show and a chef was preparing spaetzle with what looked more like a hand crank pasta maker mixed with a meat grinder but instead of rollers it looked more chunky and irregular so he'd feed a chunk of dough in (it was a thicker dough too, about like soft bubble gum) and crank it through and it spit out tons of irregular little spaetzle. I much preferred it to these type makers but never have seen that before. The chef told me it was just a cleaner way of making spaetzle in front of a ton of people without hovering over goopy batter.

i have tried make spaetzle with multiple tools around the kitchen, trying my best to use what I have and not have to by a "one use" tool. ALAS.. the potato ricer we have has a triangle shape, so the batter ended up clumping together in the corner before falling into the water... the steamer basket atop a pot of boiling water would get too hot and cook the batter before it fell through the wholes, and a plain old colander on top of the pot was just to cumbersome and bulky. Might be time to invest in one of these tools... we do love our spaetzle!

There are some things I just don't bother to make at home. Spaetzle gives me an excuse to go out for German food every now and then, which means good German beer. Can't pass that up!

I like the sliding grater one. I haven't tried the ricer-style one. The first one is hard to use with all the steam from the pot of boiling water. Before I received my spaetzle maker as a present, I did what my mother and grandmother did - I scooped up a spoonful of dough and dropped it off the end with a knife. Slower but still effective!

Mushroom paprikash and homemade spaetzle is one of my winter meal favorites!

We make Spätzle here at our home in Northern Italy at least once a month, either plain or with spinach. We had the tin slider type until it got too rusty (after 25 years...). The big problem with the slider type is that dough tends to get into the corners of the flat part and is hard to clean out if you don't drop the whole thing into cold water immediately after making Spätzle. I bought my husband, our Spätzle-maker, one of these for Christmas and it is great to use and clean: http://www.wmf.uk.com/top-tools-_82511275/spaetzle-grater-top-tools_355225.html?sid=0CE6C71F-9C94-4195-81B4-8DF6E7230BFF

Unfortunately I don't think it is available in the US yet.

I've had some success making spaetzle with a ricer style gadget. It is true that they seem to all stick together once you press them through the holes; however, if you give the clumped spaetzle a gentle stir once the hit the bottom, they will break up.

My mother used to spoon a layer of batter on flat plate then, with a knife, scrape small amounts of batter into the boiling water. The resulting spaetzle were a little larger, but very tasty.

I would have had to drive half an hour to buy a spaetzle maker two weeks ago when the urge hit and my husband thought that that was a ridiculous idea! So he repurposed an odd sized bread loaf pan, by drilling 5/16" holes into the bottom of the pan, but only 2/3 of the pan, and of course filing them smooth. I put my batter into the end without holes and use either a spatula or bench scraper to pull the batter back and forth over the holes. It's the perfect size to rest over my pot and best of all it was free and I didn't have to leave my house! Spaetzle is now a regular part of out meal rotation.

As I am from the region in Germany where Spätzle originate, I can ´t hold my tongue.
There are three kinds of Spätzle:
Badische Spätzle are long and regular, they are made whith the ricer style Spätzlemaker. They originate from Baden, the region around Karlsruhe.
Schwäbische Spätzle are also long but somewhat irregiular they are traditionally made like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y6Ga9hMm4Y (she is speaking Schwäbisch, a german dialekt). They originate from the region arround Stuttgart and down south of Stuttgart.
Allgäuer Spätzle (also called Knöpfle = Buttons in english) are small and almost round, they are made whith the colander style and the sliding style Spätzlemaker. They originate from the Allgäu wich is the southwest of Bavaria.

My favorite Spätzledish is Allgäuer Kässpatzen:
You make some Spätzle, then you layer them whith cheese into a baking dish. Every layer should be slightly seasoned whith salt and pepper. On the top you put some extra cheese. Put it in the oven until the cheese is melted, slightly golden, creamy and delicious. We use Bergkäse but I don ´t know the english name for that sort of cheese.
Normally we would eat it with fried onions and a green salad.

Greetings from the Allgäu.

Ps. I hope my english isn ´t that bad it has been a while since I learned it in school ;-) .

I just use a colander and a rubber spatula. It's a work out, though holding the colander with one hand and pressing the dough through with the spatula with the other. I may cave for a one-trick-tool and get the pot top one shown on this page. It at least is flat and thus takes up minimal space.

I tried several different methods before finding the slider type (middle picture) maker at Zabar's on the UWS. Wow, that made life a lot easier! Quick, cheap and easy!

My dad loves making German food, so he bought a slider type spaetzle maker a few years ago. He even bought one for me when I moved into my first apartment! I've never tried making spaetzle any other way, but it is very easy and always turns out great. We like to eat it as a side dish with just a little salt and butter on it, or make a sort of casserole by adding some cheese and sauteed onions and then baking it all.