13 best Kitchenaid stand mixer attachments and accessories that are surprisingly helpful




Here’s what I recommend prioritizing when looking for a Kitchenaid stand mixer attachment or accessory, based on my experience as a home cook and insight from Dan Langan, a food content creator and author.
All of the products below are either direct recommendations from experts, NBC Select staff or have at least a 4-star average rating from 500 reviews or more on Amazon.
Featured in our pasta makers roundup, this attachment is an easy way to make long pastas, such as fettuccine or pappardelle, from scratch. It connects to the top of the mixer, so all you have to do is feed the pasta dough through the attachment. The attachment, which has a 4.8-star average rating from over 8,000 reviews on Amazon, also cuts the dough into even, ready-to-boil pieces.
Many stand mixers often come with at least three different mixing attachments: a whisk, a dough hook and a paddle. This Flex Edge beater looks similar to the paddle attachment, except it’s much more thorough: The silicone lining makes it easier to wipe off pieces of food stuck to the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl and fully incorporate them into your mix. In other words, it prevents you from having to use a rubber spatula to lift any un-mixed ingredients hiding at the bottom of the bowl. A bonus: This will also cut down on time spent washing dishes since there’s less residue stuck to the bowl. It’s highly rated, with a 4.6-star average rating from over 9,500 reviews on Amazon.
If you bake often, but also enjoy homemade ice cream every once in a while, you don’t have to get a separate churning machine if you have a stand mixer. This attachment comes recommended by Langan. “The ice cream maker attachment is a winner,” he says. “I love that it is compact — no additional motor base needed — and the KitchenAid mixer motor can handle the ice cream as it churns to a perfectly thick finish.” While it looks like a typical mixing bowl on the outside, it’s actually meant to churn and mix an ice cream base so that it reaches the proper consistency. Keep the bowl in the freezer overnight before using it to mix your ice cream quickly.
Freshly grating cheese, such as blocks of cheddar, mozzarella or fontina, makes a huge difference when making dishes like baked mac and cheese, casseroles and homemade pizza. But grating cheese on a box grater by hand is both time-consuming and tiresome. This cheese-shredding stand mixer attachment, which has a 4.6-star average rating from over 14,500 reviews on Amazon, grates cheese in a matter of seconds, which means you save time without sacrificing the flavor and texture of your dish. Plus, you can use the grates to shred more than just cheese, including potatoes, zucchini and carrots. It comes with four types of shredders, depending on what your recipe calls for.
While it’s easy to get pre-ground beef, turkey or chicken at the grocery store, you can also make your own using this metal food grinder, which attaches to the top of a KitchenAid stand mixer. You can use this to make homemade ground meat for hamburgers, meatballs, soups, stews and chilis. You could also use it to make your own homemade sausage for pasta sauce, too. It has a grinder attachment and a press tool that you use to push the meat into the machine. This way, you can control the texture of the meat you use for different dishes, especially since it comes with different grinding plate sizes. It has a 4.6-star average rating from over 14,500 reviews on Amazon.
Similar to a stand mixer, a food processor is an important appliance to have in the kitchen, especially if you dice a lot of vegetables and herbs or enjoy making your own sauces and salad dressings from scratch. With a 4.5-star average rating from over 5,100 reviews on Amazon, this food processor attachment works just like any other one, except you can connect it to the top of the mixer and place a bowl underneath to catch all of the chopped food. Since it has flour blade attachments, you can use it to cut and shred vegetables, herbs and cheese. This helps save a lot of prep time in the kitchen, so you can get food on the table as fast as possible.
This small cord organizer, which sticks to any flat surface on your stand mixer, comes recommended by NBC Select associate updates editor Zoe Malin, who’s an avid baker. It holds long cords in place by giving them something to wrap around, similar to a cord on a vacuum. “Adding this to my Kitchenaid seemed like such a minor upgrade, but it ended up being a game changer because of how I hate messy cords, especially since I have a tiny kitchen,” she says. “The cord being wrapped around this little organizer prevents it from getting twisty and overall makes storage neater and easier.” Malin also uses this holder to organize cords on electric hand mixers as well.
If you’ve ever baked any dessert or recipe that calls for flour and other powdered ingredients, whether with a stand or hand mixer, then you know how often it ends up all over the counter and floor. Because stand mixers move ingredients around so quickly, it causes the flour to immediately fly into the air and over the sides of the bowl. This shield, which has a 4.7-star average rating from more than 1,400 reviews on Amazon, solves this problem entirely, and keeps all your ingredients in the bowl.
As much as you probably clean your kitchen countertops and appliances regularly, sometimes they still get dirty, whether it’s from dust, residual flour or crumbs. This fitted stand mixer cover helps prevent your appliance from collecting dust when you’re not using it and shields your mixer from accidental spills or splashes. It comes in either a quilted or striped print in a range of shades. It also has a useful pocket on the side to keep extra attachments or accessories. It has a 4.7-star average rating from over 700 reviews on Amazon.
While the accessory above helps keep your stand mixer clean while it sits on the counter, this option serves as both a cover and carrying case to help you take it on the go.. It’s especially useful if you plan on baking at someone else's house and/or if you’re a caterer and often travel with a stand mixer. It has multiple pockets for keeping additional accessories such as extra whisks and spoons, and a 4.8-star average rating from 3,400 reviews on Amazon.
If you eat and cook with a lot of vegetables, such as zucchini, carrots and sweet potatoes, but you don’t love the time and effort it takes to peel or shred them, this spiralizer attachment, which has a 4.7-star average rating from over 9,800 reviews on Amazon, is a huge help. You can use it to spiralize vegetables and turn them into “noodles” or peel produce like potatoes and apples for a range of dishes. This way you don’t spend most of your prep time using a y-shaped peeler to peel by hand — you can simply attach the vegetable to the blade and let the machine do the work.
While the wire whisk attachment helps make frosting, whipped cream or meringue in a pinch, it can be tedious to try and get every last bit of it off and into the bowl. Usually, you have to use a spoon or rubber spatula to try and push all of the remaining whipped food off of the whisk, but even then there’s still some left. This whisk wiper, which has a 4.1-star average rating from over 3,900 reviews on Amazon, helps get all of that stuck-on food off the whisk and into the bowl so you’re not wasting any ingredients. All you have to do is keep the attachment at the top of the whisk when mixing and when you’re done, push it downward to remove any frosting left on the wires of the whisk.
Similar to the shield, this pouring chute makes it easy to use powdery ingredients like flour without making a mess. If you’ve ever used a stand mixer, then you know it’s sometimes hard to add flour as it’s mixing because the space at the top is small and awkwardly shaped. A pouring chute makes it easy to gradually pour in the flour as the mixer is moving, which many baking recipes often call for. It has a 4.6-star average rating from more than 9,200 reviews on Amazon.
At NBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also take steps to ensure all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and without undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
I’m a commerce editor at NBC Select, where I write roundups and product reviews on kitchen and home appliances, such as Cuisinart’s air fryer toaster oven, Anyday’s cookware and pasta makers. I chose highly rated products and sourced product recommendations from an experts and NBC Select staff for this story.
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