I Tested the Internet’s Top KitchenAid Hacks, & These Are the 7 Everyone Should Know

Many a recipe has been ruined by a mixer that doesn’t evenly combine your ingredients. The Dime Test is the easiest way to prevent that, if you own a tilt-head style mixer. You simply stick a dime in the bowl of your stand mixer, pop on the beater attachment and watch to see if the dime slowly ‘dances’ around the bowl as the beater flicks it. If it doesn’t move, the beater is too high and needs to be lowered, which you can do by lifting the head of the mixer and looking for the large, flat-head screw right at the joint. Twist it a quarter-turn to the right to lower it; to the left to raise it. (YouTuber SavorySaver has a great tutorial, if you’d like to see this step-by-step.)

Why a dime, you might ask? That’s because it’s about 1/16th of an inch thick, which is the recommended distance between the bottom of the beater and the bowl.

Yes, you can use BBQ claws or forks to shred chicken, but if you’re cooking for a crowd and want things done fast, toss that cooked, boneless bird into the mixer. In about 10 to 15 seconds on low, you’ll have perfectly shredded meat. Just don’t mix it on too high of a speed (that bird’s days of flying everywhere are over!) or let it mix for too long (you’ll wind up with chicken puree). This trick’s especially useful if you’re making Buffalo chicken dip or a casserole, since you can stir in the other ingredients without dirtying extra dishes.

I love homemade mashed potatoes; I hate how a potato masher takes up half the space in a utensil drawer or crock. After draining my freshly boiled potatoes, I’ll dump them into the mixer with a little butter, cream or milk, and salt and pepper, mixing it on low until I have the consistency I like.

On busy nights, I’ll microwave the potatoes until they’re fork tender instead of waiting for water to boil, making this a surprisingly fast side to whip up.

I don’t get the appeal of plastic splash guards. It’s the one KitchenAid accessory I don’t even bother with, since it’s so easy to stick a dish towel like a veil over the mixer and use that instead.

You may have seen people recommend sticking your mixer’s bowl in the freezer for at least an hour before making whipped cream, swearing that the end result is lighter and fluffier. That’s been my experience too, and science backs it: The colder the fat is in your cream, the harder it is too, which helps stabilize and trap in air bubbles to form a taller, puffier whipped cream. That said, you can still have an excellent whipped cream without adding on this step, so if you forget, make that homemade whip anyway. It’s still better than anything store-bought.

You can buy KitchenAid mixer pads online, so your mixer doesn’t scrape your counter—or you have to pick it up and move it—to adjust its position on your tabletop. But you could also save a few bucks and try putting a dish towel or placemat underneath it (provided it’s still creating a flat, even surface with no wobbling). I found that an old burp cloth was exactly the dimensions of my mixer’s base, and it does make repositioning it much easier.

While KitchenAid’s stainless steel and coated tools can be cleaned in the dishwasher, the base itself can use a good scrub-down from time to time. Soapy water and a washcloth work wonders, but for the screws, vents in the back and other tiny crevices, a Q-tip is a must. I recommend dipping it in a little all-purpose cleaner and scrubbing the inner rim of the base, where the bowl attaches, about once or twice a year. It’s amazing how almost-invisible grime gets in there, making it hard to untwist and remove the bowl over time.

I’ve wanted this hack to work so badly, but my results are always much soupier than I’d like. The idea is that you put store-bought ice cream in the mixer with chopped candy, give it a mix for a few seconds, then enjoy a soft serve-like treat. Instead of whipping air into dense, packed ice cream, it just seems to help it melt faster. That may be due to the ice cream I stock—I tend to use Ben & Jerry’s or Jeni’s, which has more milk fat, giving it a silkier texture than most packed ice creams. Either way, at the end of the day, I’d rather combine the candy and ice cream into a sundae than dirty my mixer.

2. Turn an Old Lid into a Splatter Guard

Plenty of TikToks show you how to take a large plastic lid, cutting it to create a splatter guard you can pop over the bowl without impeding the mixer. It’s brilliant, but to me, it’s one more thing to store (and hunt for) in a cupboard, and my trusty dish towel gets the job done just as well.