The 6 Best Stand Mixers, According to Our Tests

Best Overall

Breville Bakery Chef Stand Mixer

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On top of its high power and quality materials, this Breville stand mixer is a nice size for any counter. It completed every task in our testing quickly with minimal noise and mess. It whipped cream to stiff peaks in 18 seconds, far faster than any other model, and it mixed cookie dough and kneaded bread dough evenly, efficiently, and quietly.

We like that the 12 speed settings are helpfully named for their purpose — knead, beat, whip — and the built-in timer is fantastic. You can set a mixing session and move on to the rest of your recipe, knowing that the machine will shut off automatically. We also love the integrated light to illuminate the contents of the bowl.

The Breville Bakery Chef comes with separate glass and steel bowls and all the standard blades and beaters, and it's only slightly above average in price. That's honestly a really solid deal. The only big reason we can think of that you might want to skip this mixer is if you're looking to expand its functions with additional attachments. Unlike KitchenAid and some other brands, there aren't compatible meat grinders, pasta rollers, or similar accessories.

Dimensions: 11.4 x 14.8 x 14.3 inches | Power: 550 watts | Speed Settings: 12 | Capacity: 5 quarts | Weight: 21 pounds | Includes: 5-quart glass bowl, 4-quart stainless steel bowl, scraper beater, flat beater, dough hook, whisk, splash guard, pouring shield, spatula

Best Overall, Runner Up

Kenwood Chef Kitchen Machine

$550 at Amazon $560 at Williams Sonoma

This space-age-looking mixer is appealing for modern kitchens, and it's much more powerful than its compact form would make you guess. The bowl and attachments, except the splashguard, can all go in the dishwasher, and we found Kenwood's splash guard especially helpful for keeping the base and our counters clean. This stand mixer was a little slow in whipping cream in our tests, but it mixed everything thoroughly and effectively. It was quick at kneading bread dough on higher settings, but the manufacturer's instructions recommend kneading at the lowest speed setting. It may be worth keeping an eye on the heat of the machine, but we had no overheating issues.

If you want to expand the abilities of your mixer, the Kenwood has four different attachment points for various accessories you can buy, from a slicer to a blender to an ice cream maker. Unfortunately, all of those cost extra money on top of this machine's already high price. Our other design quibble is that the tilt-head sits very low over the bowl, making it difficult to see the contents during mixing, as well as to close and lock in place when the bowl is full of stiff dough.

Dimensions: 8.9 x 15.7 x 11.7 inches | Power: 750 watts | Speed Settings: Numbered variable speed dial | Capacity: 5 quarts | Weight: 23 pounds | Includes: 5-quart stainless steel bowl, K-beater, flexi beater, whisk, dough hook, spatula, spanner, splash guard

Best Large-Capacity

KitchenAid 7 Quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer

$600 $500 at Amazon $600 $500 at Sur La Table $650 $450 at Kitchenaid.com

*Editor's note: We tested the KitchenAid Pro Line Series 7-Quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer, which is no longer available. This version is nearly identical, at a slightly lower price.

"I love my KitchenAid," O'Brien says, "I felt like a real grown-up when I got my first one." She's had the same model at home for more than 15 years, and it's an older version of this 7-quart monster. (It's "the biggest one I can get!" she enthuses.) Rather than the head tilting down into the bowl like with smaller KitchenAid mixers, this one uses a crank to lift and lock the bowl in place under the stationary motor. It's more stable than the tilt-head design: This bowl-lift model was quieter and less wobbly than the other three KitchenAids we tested, and having the option to lower the bowl made scraping down the sides much easier.

The redesigned 7-quart KitchenAid comes with more attachments than most of its brand-mates, including a whisk, dough hook, and three separate beaters: the standard flat beater, a flat beater with silicone bowl-scraping edges, and a special pastry beater made to cut cold butter into flour for croissants and other types of pastry recipes. We were most impressed in testing by how well the large mixer handled small amounts; it was able to reach all parts of the bowl even when it was mostly empty.

We were particularly impressed with this stand mixer's user-friendliness: setting up the machine, attaching the bowl, and adjusting the settings are functional and intuitive. If you have the space (and the money), it's a good option whether you're feeding large or small groups.

Dimensions: 14 x 16.5 x 11.5 inches | Power: 650 watts | Speed Settings: 10 | Capacity: 7 quarts | Weight: 35.3 pounds | Includes: 7-quart stainless steel bowl, flat beater, flex edge beater, pastry beater, dough hook, whisk, pouring shield, pastry beater scraper

Best Splurge

Wolf Gourmet High-Performance Stand Mixer

$800 at Amazon $800 at Williams Sonoma $800 at Wayfair

A serious workhorse, the Wolf Gourmet is a heavy-duty machine equally at home on a home countertop as in a restaurant kitchen. Its 7-quart bowl can handle larger recipes, and the motor is designed to keep spinning at the same speed no matter how much strain it's under. Rather than a limited number of settings, the Wolf's dial rotates to raise and lower the speed smoothly through its full range.

In testing, the Wolf easily handled whipped cream. It performed especially quickly with cookie dough. It struggled a bit kneading bread dough, as the hook didn't effectively reach everything stuck to the sides of the deep bowl. We had to stop and scrape it down a few times for best results. The mixing bowl isn't dishwasher-safe, though we did note that it didn't have any crevices and joints to hold onto bits of food while hand-washing.

The biggest downside of the Wolf mixer is its attachment coverage. With the initial amount of pavlova in the bowl, the machine could not whip up the mixture, so we had to add more to test its whipping capability. This was also the most expensive mixer we tested, at more than triple the average. But like all of the brand's appliances, it's built to last for years. For the person wanting to bake large capacities in an almost industrial mixer, the Wolf Gourmet is the correct pick.

Dimensions: 20 x 19.5 x 13.1 inches | Power: 500 watts | Speed Settings: Variable infinite speed dial with pulse function | Capacity: 7 quarts | Weight: 36.2 pounds | Includes: 7-quart stainless steel bowl, flat beater, whisk, dough hook, pouring/splash shield

Best Compact

KitchenAid Artisan Mini Stand Mixer

$380 $280 at Amazon $300 at Williams Sonoma $323 at Wayfair

This tiny version of the classic KitchenAid is ideal for cooks with big aspirations who have small kitchens. The Mini works just like the other two KitchenAid models on our list, only with a smaller capacity and less weight. It has 10 speeds and comes with the standard set of a beater, dough hook, and whisk. It's compatible with most of KitchenAid's handy attachments, from meat grinder to pasta maker to spiralizer.

The Mini's beater blade has a flexible silicone edge to scrape the sides of the bowl, and we found that effective in thoroughly incorporating cookie dough quickly. It also had no trouble in our whipped cream test, turning in one of the faster times. Kneading dough, however, was not its strength. A one-loaf recipe was able to fit in the bowl (barely), but the low-power motor got very loud, and the whole machine wobbled across the table.

Dimensions: 7.8 x 12.3 x 12.3 inches | Power: 250 watts | Speed Settings: 10 | Capacity: 3.5 quarts | Weight: 18 pounds | Includes: 3.5-quart stainless steel bowl, flex edge beater, dough hook, whisk

Best Classic

KitchenAid 5-Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

$450 at Amazon $450 $330 at Target $330 at Williams Sonoma

The KitchenAid stand mixer is an icon of the modern kitchen. This machine's streamlined look, twist-to-lock bowl, and simple controls haven't changed much since they were first introduced in 1937, and it's a testament to how well-designed the thing is that it's still a best-seller almost a century later. That applies to pros as much as home cooks, too: Stern says he loves KitchenAid because the mixers are "classic, strong, and easy to repair if necessary." Plus, you can get the mixers in dozens of attractive colors and patterns.

In testing, the 5-quart Artisan worked somewhat slower than competitors, but it whipped, combined, and kneaded reliably, evenly, and thoroughly. It's easy to clean, with a dishwasher-safe bowl and attachments that have smooth surfaces and fewer corners to catch crumbs. The motor placement makes it top-heavy, however, which leads to wobbling and shaking when running at high speed. It's also on the loud side. The price is a little higher than average, though this is a machine that can last you for decades.

Dimensions: 14 x 13 x 8 inches | Power: 325 watts | Speed Settings: 10 | Capacity: 5 quarts | Weight: 29 pounds | Includes: 5-quart stainless steel bowl, flat beater, dough hook, whisk, pouring shield