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If so, we compiled this list of the best KitchenAid attachments to help you find the right ones for your needs.
Perhaps you’re looking for a few more small appliances to add to your cooking repertoire but don’t have the space for larger tabletop machines—or maybe you just geek out over kitchen gadgets (no judgment).
KitchenAid stand mixers are, first and foremost, powerful mixers, making baking projects infinitely easier than mixing by hand. This benefit alone makes having a stand mixer worth the investment. But no matter which KitchenAid you have, it's built to do so much more than just mix. The KitchenAid power hub connector at the top front of every mixer connects to dozens of different appliance attachments, including pasta makers, juicers , shredders, spiralizers , grinders, and food processors.
Great for cooking foods that require a very precise temperature or when you want to hold a temperature for a long period of time.
This one doesn’t add any functions to your stand mixer, but it does make mixing more efficient.
The bowl fits directly onto the arms of the bowl-lift models, and there’s an adapter for tilt-head models.
It takes a lot of the work out of the process; simply feed the pasta into the roller and catch it on the other side.
The machine comes with three stainless steel filters that allow different pulp levels through the juicing process, as well as two containers to catch the pulp and juice as they come out of the machine separately. As with most attachments, it’s best to work slowly in small batches and clean out the filters often for the best results.
Built with the same kind of machinery that you’d find in a stand-alone high-end juicer, this masticating juicer will save you from ever making a trip to a fancy juice shop ever again. It works by finely slicing or crushing the fruit and veggies you feed into it and then using centrifugal force to extract the pulp’s juices. You get a flavorful juice without the hassle of blending and straining your ingredients.
One of the most popular uses of the mill is for grinding corn into fresh masa harina (flour) for making tortillas. KitchenAid advises using the grain mill for low-moisture and low-oil ingredients, like wheat, oat, corn, barley, buckwheat, millet, rice, and other cereals. If you’re interested in processing nuts, consider breaking them down in the food processor into small pieces first and working slowly to avoid the mill overheating.
The KitchenAid All-Metal Grain Mill is slightly smaller than other mills, but it also costs substantially less than industrial and professional models. It’s also far easier to use than a hand-cranked grain mill that can quickly make a fun project cumbersome. It works slowly but produces commercial-quality flour, so prepare yourself to exercise a little patience for a satisfying final product.
In recent years, the culinary world has embraced a much wider variety of grains beyond wheat. With that has come a particular interest in processing small batches of grains at home for artisan bread making and unique pastry recipes. After all, unless you’re planning on opening a bakery, you probably don’t need a 25-pound bag of rye flour sitting around.
While this isn’t an essential item, it’s great for cooking foods that require a very precise temperature or when you want to hold a temperature for a long time. It’s also more convenient than using a double boiler on the stove since you don’t need to check the temperature with a thermometer—the bowl does it for you. There are two different models, and this one is compatible with tilt-head mixers.
The precise heat bowl can be used while attached to the stand mixer, so you can beat or whip or knead ingredients while keeping them at a precise temperature or while heating gently. You can also use it separately from the mixer as a slow cooker. This heats from 70 to 222 degrees, making it ideal for making custards or yogurt, proofing bread, simmering soups, or tempering chocolate. It has a digital readout and a timer, and a glass lid for use off the mixer.
This attachment is quite large and may be challenging for some to store, but it mounts easily onto the stand mixer's power hub, and a storage case keeps the different discs organized and protected. Reviewers rave about the ease and speed at which it cuts ingredients for recipes. Put produce or cheese into the tube and feed them into the processor using the included food pusher.
While this attachment won't work for some tasks, such as mixing biscuit dough or prepping pesto , it does slice, dice, shred, and julienne. The versatile accessory comes with a commercial-style dicing kit to quickly chop veggies—and in the size of your choice thanks to the ExactSlice System, which you can adjust using a lever on the side of the unit.
Along with the discs, there is also a pusher for sending dough through the press and a stainless steel cleaning tool. While the description says this includes a storage case, consumers report that it comes in a box, but there is no case.
A built-in wire cutter lets you cut the pasta to your desired length, whether you want long strands of spaghetti, medium-length rigatoni, or super-short pasta rings for soup.
Homemade pasta is easier with this pasta press that fits any current KitchenAid stand mixer model. It uses the mixer’s power hub to squeeze pasta dough through one of the six discs to make different pasta shapes, including spaghetti, bucatini, rigatoni, fusilli, large macaroni, and small macaroni.
This shouldn’t be used to mix thick batters with hard ingredients that could damage the rubber edge, like cookie dough with nuts. This beater fits the tilt-head mixers, but you can also get one for bowl-lift style mixers.
Unlike other attachments, this one doesn’t add any functions to your stand mixer, but it does make mixing more efficient. The soft rubbery edge scrapes the sides of the bowl as you mix, so you won’t need to stop when mixing to make sure everything is well combined. However, our product tester suggests using a pouring shield with this attachment if mixing dry ingredients.
All the blades are top-rack dishwasher safe, and all the parts store neatly in the included storage case.
This comes with five blades (two for slicing, two for spiralizing, and one for peeling) that you can easily swap in and out. The peeling blade comes in handy when you need to peel lots of fruits and vegetables without slicing or spiralizing them, like potatoes, for example. During our tests, we found that each blade performed as well at its maximum as it did its minimum.
If you love spiralized vegetables , adding a spiralizer to your KitchenAid stand mixer makes a lot of sense. Like other attachments, it connects to the hub and fits all current KitchenAid stand mixer models.
"One thing I loved about this mixer over standalone models is that you can see the mix as it freezes." — Stacey L. Nash , Product Tester
The KitchenAid ice cream maker consists of a freezer bowl that can live in your freezer when it’s not in use and a paddle that attaches to the mixer to stir the ice cream as it freezes. The bowl fits directly onto the arms of the bowl-lift models, and there’s an adapter included to make the bowl work on tilt-head models. Like other freezer-bowl ice cream makers, this allows you to freeze one batch of ice cream at a time before the bowl needs to go back into the freezer again. Our reviewer says she made two batches of ice cream with this attachment, and both turned out creamy and delicious.
Making ice cream at home is fun, and it allows you to customize the flavors to fit your family’s tastes. But since ice cream is a seasonal treat and standalone ice cream makers take a bit of space, you might be reluctant to invest in one.
You can cook pasta fresh, dry it, or freeze it for later use.
Like many of the mixer’s attachments, it hooks into the motor through the knob on the mixer's head. It also takes a lot of the work out of the process; simply feed the pasta into the roller and catch it on the other side. Flat sheets are great for making lasagna noodles or filled pasta like ravioli, but the set also comes with cutters for thin and thick noodles, so you don’t have to cut the pasta by hand. Our product tester found that the rollers and cutters were solidly built and easy to attach and detach.
One of the trickiest parts about making pasta is rolling it evenly, so you end up with noodles that are all the same thickness. The pasta roller makes that simple.
Final Verdict There is a KitchenAid attachment for just about anything, so it depends on your cooking habits and what conveniences you're looking for when making this purchase decision. For pasta lovers, the KitchenAid 3-Piece Pasta Roller and Cutter Set would be an excellent investment piece. If most of your recipes require a lot of slicing and dicing vegetables, the KitchenAid Food Processor with Commercial Style Dicing Kit (view at Amazon) would save you a whole lot of time in the kitchen.
What to Look for in a KitchenAid Attachment
By Jenny Kellerhals
The Spruce Eats / Tierney McAfee
Types of Attachments
Pasta Rollers, Cutters, and Presses
Pasta sheet roller: Unless you’ve had decades of practice learning from an experienced Italian nonna, you’re probably not going to be able to roll out perfectly thin and even sheets of pasta with much ease. This is exactly why the pasta sheet roller is one of the most popular mixer attachments for both home and professional cooks.
With eight thickness settings, the pasta sheet roller attachment accommodates your roughly rolled dough and sheets it to your desired thickness. At a maximum width of 6 inches, the pasta sheets are perfect for lasagna sheets or ready for cutting into noodles or ravioli.
While some people are comfortable slicing their pasta dough into noodles by hand, KitchenAid also provides pasta cutter attachments in four different widths that make slicing pasta consistent and efficient. The cutters work the same way as the sheeter (and require pre-sheeted dough). The downside is that the different widths are not sold individually but rather as part of different sets—which can get expensive if you don’t plan for which pieces you’d like to use.
Two-piece set: Includes a medium-large-width lasagnette and very small capellini cutter.
Three-piece set: Includes the pasta sheet roller as well as a small spaghetti and medium-width fettuccine cutter.
Five-piece deluxe set: Includes the pasta sheet roller and all four pasta cutters.
1-inch ravioli maker: The ravioli maker plugs into the hub of your KitchenAid for stability, but is a hand-cranked machine. Using pre-sheeted pasta dough, the ravioli maker attachment creates pockets of whatever filling you place in the filling hopper, pressing and scoring the dough around the pockets into consistent ravioli shapes. Reviews of the ravioli maker are mixed, with some praising the convenience of the machine filling the pasta, and others mentioning that traditional ravioli presses are just as convenient for a fraction of the price.
Gourmet pasta press attachment: Extruded pasta is a different ballgame. Instead of sheeted pasta cut into noodles, pasta dough is pressed through a patterned die to create noodle shapes (similar to spritz cookie presses). The gourmet pasta press attachment comes with six discs that extrude pasta into round spaghetti, bucatini, rigatoni, fusilli, and large and small macaroni shapes. Pasta dough is pressed through the top feeder and then cut with a wirecutter at the base when it has reached the desired length. If you’ve never made extruded pasta before, you’ll likely get the hang of feeding and cutting the dough quickly.
The Spruce Eats / Tierney McAfee
Grinder Attachments
KitchenAid makes two grinder attachments: one heavy-duty all-metal set with extras and one mostly plastic grinder made for light- to medium-duty home use. Grinders are great for those interested in making their own sausages, chorizo, or even easily grinding hard cheeses, vegetables for salsa, and breadcrumbs.
Metal food grinder: This kit includes three sizes of grinding plates, a larger detachable food tray, and a plunger, as well as two sizes of sausage stuffer attachments and a cleaning brush. The metal grinder attachment is meant to be refrigerated before and in between meat-grinding projects for cleaner grinding.
Plastic food grinder: This grinder includes two grinder plates and is mostly dishwasher safe. An attachable sausage stuffer kit and a larger food tray are sold separately.
Fruit and vegetable strainer set with food grinder: The same plastic food grinder set with two grinding plates as listed above, with an additional fruit and vegetable strainer is attached to the front to help process ingredients for soups, sauces, chutneys, and jams.
Juicers
Citrus juicer attachment: KitchenAid makes two styles of juicers for different juicing intensities and budgets. On the lower end of the price spectrum in a classic reamer-style citrus juicer attachment, juicing a quart of fresh orange juice for breakfast is a breeze compared to a hand juicer.
Masticating juicer and sauce attachment: The masticating juicer is an impressive attachment to the KitchenAid for those interested in the powerful juicing options it offers without buying a standalone juicer. Price-wise, it can be comparable to low-end standalone juicer models, but it takes up less storage space overall. Some reviewers mention that your juice will need to be strained again to remove more pulp.
Food Processors
Food processor attachments: KitchenAid makes two food processor attachments for the stand mixer, but these aren’t your typical single-blade food processors meant for just chopping nuts. These are smaller versions of commercial types of food processors that include disks for slicing, julienning, and shredding. The upgraded model includes a dicing kit and a carrying case for the discs. If you start with the base model attachment and find that you want to use the dicing kit and disc case, KitchenAid offers them separately to complete your collection.
While generally not as powerful as other standalone food processors on the market, most users love it for its convenience and range of uses while taking up so little space.
Peelers and Spiralizer Attachments
Vegetable sheet peeler: Think pasta sheeter attachment but for vegetables and apples. If you’re interested in a veggie sheet lasagna, veggie wraps, or creative pastry applications, the vegetable sheet peeler will churn out smooth sheets that would otherwise be next to impossible to make by hand.
Noodle blade accessory: Just like the pasta cutter attachments, the noodle blade accessory is here to slice your beautifully sheeted vegetables into noodle shapes. It must be used in conjunction with the vegetable sheet peeler attachment.
Five-blade and seven-blade spiralizer: These spiralizer attachments will produce the long vegetable tendrils you love for veggie pasta and fresh salads, and they include a peeler blade to make quick work of those apple and potato skins that would otherwise slow your cooking down. The peeler attachment can be used in conjunction with the slicing blades for efficient prep. The five-blade set includes two slicing blades, two spiralizing blades, and the peeling blade. The seven-blade set includes an additional slicing and spiralizing blade, which can be purchased separately if you decide to start with the five-blade model.
The Spruce Eats / Stacey L. Nash
Fresh prep slicer/shredder: Shredding carrots for carrot cake? Cheese for a Super Bowl’s worth of nachos? Or pounds of potatoes to serve latkes to the whole family? Give your arm a break, put the box grater and mandolin away, and let the slicer/shredder do the work for you. The large and small grating attachments, as well as the slicer attachment, do all of the same work with minimal effort.
Grain Mill Attachment
Grain mill: This one’s for the serious bread bakers and exploratory pastry cooks out there. The KitchenAid grain mill attachment is easier to use than a hand-cranked grain mill and much less expensive than other standalone grain mills that can easily cost double the price of this attachment. KitchenAid claims that the grain mill will process grains such as wheat, oats, corn, and rice in textures ranging from “cracked” to extra-fine.
Scale and sifter: This attachment aims to streamline the baking process by scaling and sifting dry ingredients like flour, granulated sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda directly into your KitchenAid mixing bowl. Most reviewers love using it, but some were turned off by the large price tag—and others found it more tedious to use than typical scaling.
Bowl Attachments
These attachments aren’t built for the power hub connection but instead are specialty mixing bowls that heat or freeze, using your stand mixer to keep the contents of the bowl moving.
Ice cream maker bowl: Spinning up to 2 quarts of ice cream or sorbet in under 30 minutes, the ice cream maker bowl is a convenient and space-saving ice cream making solution for those who enjoy making ice cream periodically at home. The bowl freezes for 24 hours and can be attached to either head-tilt or bowl-lift style machines (but, unfortunately, it isn’t compatible with the Artisan Mini mixer). Once assembled, the special paddle attachment spins your ice cream base until it's soft, aerated, and chilled. To completely freeze your ice cream, you may need to finish chilling it in the freezer for an hour or two.
The Spruce Eats / Stacey L. Nash
Because the bowl must be completely frozen before churning, you’ll only be able to spin one ice cream at a time—allowing the bowl to refreeze after washing and between uses. Depending on how often you use the ice cream bowl, you may choose to store the bowl in the freezer so it’s ready whenever you are.
Precise heat mixing bowl: This incredibly precise heated bowl can be attached to your KitchenAid mixer, but it also works as a standalone heating bowl. You may think that’s mighty fancy for fondue, but this bowl was designed and engineered for more complex and precise projects, including proofing bread and tempering chocolate. With a max temperature of 222 degrees, you can also slow-cook foods over several hours and heat delicate sauces like Béarnaise without risking scorching them on the stovetop.
Other Attachments
The popularity of KitchenAid attachments has spawned several compatible off-brand products, including a slew of pasta sheeters and cutters, grinders, slicers, and shredders. KitchenAid makes the most comprehensive and reliable attachments for their stand mixers, but other brands have developed attachments that are occasionally lower-priced or have slightly different features from the name-brand attachments.
Key Considerations
Price
Most KitchenAid attachments don’t come cheap. If price is a major consideration when looking for an additional piece of equipment, it’s a good idea to compare the attachment you’re interested in with other stand-alone machines that do the same job. Many times, you may find a separate machine that costs less than the attachment, but you might sacrifice convenience, craftsmanship, or possibly storage space—all good things to consider when judging the overall value of your equipment.
Several major retailers also provide discounts and special coupons on KitchenAid products, including attachments throughout the year.
Warranty Information
All of the KitchenAid attachments come with a one-year hassle-free warranty. The warranty covers any out-of-the-box defects (which happen—so keep your receipts), as well as malfunction during proper use. The warranties do not cover your machine if it’s been used outside of the home environment or shows signs of misuse; in some cases, they don't cover additional parts for repairs.
When looking to purchase an attachment, consider the vendor's return policy. Some stores have a flexible return policy and will replace an attachment if it isn’t working properly without involving the manufacturer directly.
The Spruce Eats / Stacey L. Nash
Maintenance
When it comes to cleaning your attachments, every piece is cleaned differently. Some attachments, like the pasta sheeter and cutters, are very delicate and need to be cleaned entirely by hand or with a damp cloth. Other pieces can be cleaned in the dishwasher. Some attachments will need to be disassembled and washed partially by hand. Refer to the user manual for exact cleaning instructions.
Why Trust The Spruce Eats?
Donna Currie is the author of the cookbook Make Ahead Bread and specializes in product reviews and kitchen gadgets, so she knows a thing or two when it comes to KitchenAid attachments. Donna has written countless roundups and reviews for The Spruce Eats, including the best instant-read thermometers, espresso machines, spiralizers, and more.
This piece was updated by Jenny Kellerhals, who has worked as a professional pastry chef in NYC kitchens for over a decade. Only the most reliable equipment makes it into her small apartment kitchen, so she understands the value of dependable kitchen tools.