I Tested 11 Hand Mixers to Find the Best One, and, Boy, Are My Arms Tired

I adore my versatile and powerful KitchenAid stand mixer. It’s a workhorse that’s by my side in the kitchen undertaking a mountain of recipe development tasks and the baking I do for fun. But a stand mixer is also a big financial investment that’s not within everyone’s reach, and it takes up a lot of real estate on the counter. For a more affordable, lightweight, and compact tool that can take on whipping and mixing tasks with ease, consider a hand mixer.

Picturing a hand mixer might bring up some instant nostalgia for you, and for good reason! Electric hand mixers came onto the American culinary scene in the 1960s and have been extremely popular ever since. Your parents or grandparents likely had one tucked in a drawer, ready to mix up the next celebratory birthday cake or batch of cookies. Who doesn’t have a foundational childhood memory of being passed a beater to lick after mixing was done? 

To find the best hand mixers available today, I put 11 models through a gauntlet of tests. I used them to whip up clouds of whipped cream, to cream butter and sugar together for stiff chocolate chunk cookie dough, and to beat batches of thick cream cheese frosting. Some mixers passed with flying colors, and others fell woefully short.

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Hand Mixer

Breville The Handy Mix Scraper

$140 $130 at Amazon $130 at Williams-Sonoma $129 at Walmart

This is the Cadillac of hand mixers. Its thoughtful design has every feature you could wish for and more (including a storage compartment), and its powerful mixing action made quick work of the tests I threw its way. Its high performance comes at a not-insignificant price tag, but you’re investing in quality with this model.

The Best Cordless Hand Mixer

KitchenAid 7-Speed Cordless Hand Mixer

$100 at Amazon $110 at Walmart $100 at Home Depot

If you prefer not to be hassled by a cord or outlet placement, this cordless hand mixer by KitchenAid is freeing! It functions surprisingly powerfully for being battery-operated, and works quietly and efficiently.

The Best Budget Hand Mixer

Hamilton Beach Professional 5-Speed Electric Hand Mixer

$38 at Amazon $38 $31 at Walmart $38 at Target

I was consistently wowed by this inexpensive hand mixer from Hamilton Beach. It performed neck and neck with the other winners in all three tests and was lightweight and comfortable to hold. It has a basic, no-frills design, but got every job done at an impressive value.

 The Tests 

• Whipped Cream Test: With each hand mixer, I whipped one cup of chilled heavy cream and one tablespoon of granulated sugar using the standard beaters and timed how long it took the mixer to whip the cream to stiff peaks. I also evaluated how much splatter the mixer caused outside of the bowl and on the underside of its body.
• Cookie Dough Test: I used each hand mixer to make a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough. I evaluated how easily the mixer creamed the butter and sugar together, how well the beaters scraped the sides of the bowl and incorporated the ingredients, and how the motor fared after adding flour and chopped chocolate to form a stiff dough.
• Cream Cheese Frosting Test: I used the three winning models to make batches of cream cheese frosting, which has an extended whipping time. I evaluated the final texture of the frosting and how comfortable the hand mixer was to hold over a long period.
• User Experience Test: For all of the tests above, I used the same 5.5-quart stainless steel mixing bowl. I evaluated how easy the mixer was to hold, how clear it was to select a speed setting, how loud it was while running, how simple it was to add and remove the attachments, and how easy the mixer and beaters were to clean.

What We Learned 

What You Can (and Really Shouldn’t) Use a Hand Mixer For

Think of a hand mixer as a toaster oven and a stand mixer as a home oven. It can do lots of quick tasks in a compact package, though it’s not quite as powerful as the full version.

A hand mixer uses two spinning beaters attached to a hand-held motor to mix together ingredients in a bowl. The user needs to tilt and move the mixer around to get things evenly mixed, requiring some arm strength and mobility. Hand mixers are ideally suited to whipping and beating lighter ingredients, like cream or egg whites, and taking on shorter tasks that won’t tire your arms out over time. Recipes like whipped cream, meringues, or birthday cake are ideal for a hand mixer.

More powerfully built hand mixer motors can undertake heavier-duty tasks like creaming together butter and sugar. They can also handle longer whipping times, though you’ll need to be ready for an arm workout. The mixers in this lineup could handle the thick dough for chocolate chip cookies (with varied levels of struggle).

Where the line really needs to be drawn between hand mixers and stand mixers is making bread dough. Some hand mixer models in this lineup included dough hook attachments, but I remain dubious about their effectiveness. Kneading bread dough, especially if it’s a stiff dough with low hydration, requires a lot of power. Our winning hand mixer by Breville maxes out at 240 watts, versus our winning KitchenAid stand mixer at 575 watts. If you plan to do a lot of bread baking and don’t want to knead by hand, know that a hand mixer’s motor will likely fail over time if pushed to do a lot of heavy-duty mixing.

Helpful Features in a Hand Mixer

Given that you’ll be hanging onto your mixer and pushing it around a bowl for at least a few minutes, a comfortable grip and balanced-feeling weight are key. A divot for your index finger to rest in under the handle is a nice plus, as is the ability to stand the mixer on its end on the counter when not actively mixing (all of the mixers in this lineup met these criteria, though some were more stable than others).

Clear speed selection is another key feature. Models, like the Breville, that had a digital number readout indicating the speed level were the easiest to read, followed by sliders or dials with clearly marked numbers. Unmarked sliders or buttons that didn’t clearly align with a mark took more guesswork to figure out where a speed like “medium-high” might be. 

I also appreciated models with a “trigger” style mechanism to eject the beaters. This made it very clear how to release the beaters, versus some models where this required trial and error to discover. Some mixers ejected the beaters by pressing down on the same dial that was used for selecting the speed (not obvious to me at first), and one did not have a release button at all, and instead required forceful yanking to get the attachments out. The trigger-style pulls all worked well and had the added benefit of not being accidentally bumped.

And lastly: noise level. I enjoy listening to music and podcasts while I cook, and it’s a bummer to drown that out with loud mechanical noise, especially when I have to stand directly in its brunt for minutes on end. I strongly preferred hand mixers that were quiet enough to continue to listen to content or to have a conversation to those that sounded like angry power tools. The winning Breville model has rubber-coated beaters, which greatly reduced the clacking sound of the beaters against my metal mixing bowl. Mixing with it was remarkably quiet.

Does the Number of Speeds Matter?

The hand mixers in this lineup offered as few as three and as many as nine speeds. An odd number of speeds is helpful for being able to pinpoint “medium” when mixing, but three speeds only offer low, medium, and high options. Being able to utilize medium-low and medium-high speeds is helpful, so I recommend five speeds as a minimum. Seven- or nine-speed mixers offer some more finesse between the levels, so you have more options to find the right mixing speed for your task. But, be forewarned: There isn’t a standard speed for “low” or “high,” so the power level can vary quite a lot between mixers depending on their motors. Use your recipe’s visual and timing cues to dial in what seems like the right speed, and adjust up or down as needed. This is where those extra gradations of speed come in handy!

Are Extra Attachments Essential?

All of the hand mixers in this lineup came with two standard beaters, either in a twisted shape with an open center or a more old-fashioned rounded shape with a center post. These beaters are multi-purpose and can be used for both whipping and mixing. All three winning models featured beaters with open-center, twisted shapes, which KitchenAid claims “are designed with no center post so that they cut cleanly through cookie dough, cake mixes, and mashed potatoes.” The winning model by Breville took this one step further and coated the beaters’ wires in rubber, making them extra quiet and more effective at scraping against the bowl. I did notice that beaters with center posts caused cookie dough to clump up and stick more to the beaters during mixing, and took more effort to clean.

Some models included extra attachments like one or two balloon whisks, a blending rod for making milkshakes or frothing other drinks, and/or corkscrew-shaped stainless steel dough hooks. As mentioned above, I don’t recommend using your hand mixer to mix bread dough, even if it comes with dough hooks. The motor is likely not powerful enough to knead stiff bread doughs well! Whisks, however, are a nice extra for making whipped cream faster than the regular beaters can, though they’re not strictly essential.

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Hand Mixer

A good hand mixer should be comfortable to hold, powerful enough to mix even stiff cookie doughs, and should have a clear indicator for selecting a speed level. Having at least five speeds ensures a range of available power levels, and open-shaped beaters perform a bit better than those with a center post. We appreciated models that ran quietly and had intuitive mechanisms for ejecting the beaters, as well as clear markings for how to insert them. Extras like balloon whisk attachments, a built-in timer or light, and rubber-coated beaters are nice to have, but not as essential as good design and performance.

Our Favorite Hand Mixers

The Best Hand Mixer

Breville The Handy Mix Scraper

$140 $130 at Amazon $130 at Williams-Sonoma $129 at Walmart

What we liked: This mixer has it all. Its open, twisted-shape beaters were especially effective at creaming together butter and sugar for cookie dough. Their rubber coating scraped the sides of the mixing bowl well and made mixing remarkably quiet. The hand mixer is comfortable to hold with its angled handle. It offers some nice extras like a digital display with a built-in timer, a pause button (great for stopping to check the progress of whipped cream), a light that shines into the mixing bowl, balloon whisk attachments, and a snap-on case for storing the attachments and cord. Its trigger mechanism ejects the beaters well, and the beaters and mixers are clearly marked for how to insert them correctly. The attachments are all dishwasher-safe, making cleanup a snap.

What we didn’t like: When whipping cream with the rubber-coated beaters, this mixer took the longest to reach stiff peaks out of any in the lineup and caused a lot of splatter outside of the bowl (we’re talking on the counter, my apron, the walls, everywhere!). It’s quite powerful, even at only medium-high. But when I switched to the balloon whisks for whipping instead, the mixer clocked in as the fastest of the bunch, whipping cream in just over two minutes, and without any mess. So, make sure you use the right attachments for the job. If you’re washing the beaters by hand, you’ll need to work a little harder to clean all of the edges of the rubber-coated scrapers (though it’s not difficult). This mixer is also on the expensive side, though still significantly more affordable than a stand mixer.

Key Specs

• Number of speeds: 9
• Attachments: 2 rubber-coated stainless steel beaters, 2 balloon whisks, 2 stainless steel dough hooks
• Extra accessories: Snap-on case to store attachments
• Voltage: 120 volts
• Weight: 2.66 pounds
• Cord length: 5 feet
• Warranty: 1 year (U.S. and Canada)
• Can it stand up on its own?: Yes
• Noise level: Very quiet

The Best Cordless Hand Mixer

KitchenAid 7-Speed Cordless Hand Mixer

$100 at Amazon $110 at Walmart $100 at Home Depot

What we liked: I was prepared to be skeptical of a battery-powered mixer. It just didn’t seem likely that it would have enough oomph. However, I was pleasantly surprised by this KitchenAid, which whipped cream and mixed cookie dough well. It is lightweight and balanced, comfortable to hold, and it felt freeing not to have a cord flopping around on the counter or to be tied to where my outlet is placed in the kitchen. The battery indicator light is helpful for knowing whether the mixer was charged, and charging was pretty quick. The slider for selecting a speed doesn’t have numbers but is easy and clear to align to designated power level markings.

What we didn’t like: You’ll have to plan ahead and make sure your mixer is charged, so a cordless model is less suited to spur-of-the-moment baking. After whipping one batch of cream and mixing one batch of cookie dough, the battery indicator turned yellow halfway through my frosting test, so you’ll also have to build in recharging time if you’re planning on making a few batches of something back-to-back. This model only comes with beaters and no other accessories, other than the battery charger. I also found the beater ejector button to be stiff and slightly harder to use than trigger-style pulls.

Key Specs

• Number of speeds: 7
• Attachments: 2 stainless steel beaters
• Extra accessories: Charger
• Voltage: 120 volts
• Weight: 1.88 pounds
• Cord length: Cordless
• Warranty: 1 year (U.S. and Canada)
• Can it stand up on its own?: Yes
• Noise level: Quiet
  

The Best Budget Hand Mixer

Hamilton Beach Professional 5-Speed Electric Hand Mixer

$38 at Amazon $38 $31 at Walmart $38 at Target

What we liked: This mixer offers solid performance at a very impressive price tag. It whipped cream and mixed cookie dough just as well as models more than twice its price and was lightweight and comfortable to hold thanks to a well-designed finger rest in the handle. It has a trigger-style beater ejector and a dial with clearly marked speeds. It includes an extra balloon whisk attachment and a snap-on storage case. It’s quiet to use, even at high speed. It’s powerful but not too powerful and didn't cause mess or splatter outside the mixing bowl. It also comes with an impressive 5-year warranty—the longest of any of the mixers in the lineup.

What we didn’t like: This model feels less solid than the winning Breville and its design is fairly bare-bones. It only has five speeds compared to Breville’s nine, so it offers less range and control between power levels. The speed selection dial is a little clunkier to use and read compared to a digital display, but it gets the job done.

Key Specs

• Number of speeds: 5
• Attachments: 2 stainless steel beaters, 1 whisk
• Extra accessories: Snap-on case to store attachments
• Voltage: 120 volts
• Weight: 1.98 pounds
• Cord length: 5 feet
• Warranty: 5 years (U.S. and Canada)
• Can it stand up on its own?: Yes
• Noise level: Quiet

The Competition 

• KitchenAid 9-Speed Digital Hand Mixer with Turbo Beater: This is a solid pick and a former Serious Eats winner for a (somewhat more) affordable hand mixer. It performed just fine in the whipped cream and cookie dough tests but was in the middle of the pack for speed in both tasks. It’s a well-designed mixer with a few nice extras, but If you’re willing to spend in the $100 range for a mixer, upgrade to the Breville instead.
• Cuisinart Power Advantage Plus 9-Speed Handheld Mixer: While this model was powerful at mixing, it flung a few chocolate chunks out of the bowl when making cookie dough due to its fast speed. That power also came with a lot of noise, which I found grating and unpleasant. But, if you don’t mind it being loud, it’s an efficient mixer with an easy-to-read digital display and good functionality.
• KitchenAid 5-Speed Ultra Power Hand Mixer: This is the most basic model of the three KitchenAid mixers we tested in this lineup, and it performed nearly identically to the less expensive Hamilton Beach 5-speed mixer. While it will definitely do the job, it was louder than the Hamilton Beach model, came with no other attachments or accessories, and has a shorter warranty.
• Smeg Retro Style Electric Hand Mixer: The retro look of this mixer is kitschy and fun, but it did not perform well. It felt unbalanced and rattly to use while running, and it was hard to get the beaters to click into place properly. It was the only other mixer aside from the Breville to feature a built-in timer in its digital display, but it was confusing to read with a mix of bars for minutes and numbers for seconds. It automatically shut off after five minutes of mixing, which was unexpected and unhelpful in recipes that call for a longer mixing time. It was the most expensive mixer in the lineup by far, but that price tag did not correlate to the best usability in this case.
• Hamilton Beach 6-Speed Electric Hand Mixer: This was the least expensive mixer in the lineup, and that did seem to match its power. It struggled with stiff cookie dough and gave off a slight plasticky smell when running. It was loud and hard to tell which power level was selected with its dial. If budget is your main concern, go for the 5-speed model by Hamilton Beach instead for just a few dollars more.
• Black + Decker 6-Speed Hand Mixer: True to its brand origins, this mixer sounded and performed like a power tool. It was quite loud and powerful but didn’t have a lot of finesse. Its beaters are of the center-post variety, which caused more of the cookie dough to clump up in them. The design of its dial made it harder to tell which power level was selected. It will get the job done, but you might want to pick up some earplugs.
• Dash SmartStore Deluxe Compact Hand Mixer: I am a sucker for Dash’s turquoise appliances (my favorite color!), and have a Dash toaster and mini rice cooker in this shade. While this little hand mixer is adorable and would fit right into my kitchen decor, its performance falls short of its aesthetics. Its three speeds are very limiting, and its “low” is actually quite fast, which can be problematic if you’re trying to mix things gently. Its center-post beaters are very small and short, which makes it hard to reach the bottom of a deep mixing bowl. If space is your main concern, you'll want to know it’s quite compact but isn’t the best choice if you’re going to be baking often.
• Cuisinart EvolutionX Cordless Rechargeable Hand Mixer: This was the only cordless model in the lineup other than the KitchenAid. It has a sleek, futuristic look and features an easy-to-read digital display, but fell short during testing. Its beaters felt wobbly in the bowl when making whipped cream and there was no beater ejector mechanism. It utterly failed when making cookie dough, laboring to turn the beaters even when bumped to its highest speed. It simply did not seem to have enough power to take on harder tasks. If you are drawn to a cordless option, go with the KitchenAid instead.

FAQs

What is a hand mixer used for? 

A hand mixer can be used for whipping, creaming, and mixing tasks, such as making whipped cream, meringue, cookie dough, or cake batter. A hand mixer incorporates ingredients more easily than mixing by hand, which is particularly helpful when dealing with sticky or stiff doughs. We don't recommend using it for bread dough—for that, a stand mixer is still your best bet.

What’s the difference between a hand mixer and a hand blender? 

Hand mixers use a pair of beaters to take on tasks like whipping cream or mixing cake batter. A hand blender, on the other hand, is a stick-style blender without a base or jar. Its rotating blade is used for blending soups right in a pot, making mayonnaise, or emulsifying salad dressings. You can read our review of the best hand blenders (also called immersion blenders) here.

What’s the best way to clean a hand mixer? 

If dough has clumped up on the beaters during mixing, lift the beaters out of the dough and let the mixer run for a few seconds while suspended in the air (but still inside the bowl) to dislodge the stuck-on bits. When you’re done mixing, eject the beaters from the mixer, then wash them by hand with a sponge or in the dishwasher, if dishwasher-safe. Wipe down the mixer body with a damp cloth, making sure to check the underside for any splatters. Check the cord as well (if the mixer has one) and wipe away any sticky bits.

Why We’re the Experts 

• Afton Cyrus is a food blogger, recipe developer, culinary instructor, and freelance food writer and editor. She spent eight years as a test cook and editor at America’s Test Kitchen before becoming a contributor to Serious Eats in 2023. Her recipes and food writing appear in award-winning and New York Times bestselling cookbooks for America’s Test Kitchen, Ten Speed Press, King Arthur Baking Company, and other outlets.
• Afton has learned from the best how to execute rigorous and objective equipment testing protocols. You can see her meticulous approach to product testing in action in her reviews of fondue pots and liquid measuring cups. 
• For this review, Afton evaluated 11 hand mixers and used each to make whipped cream and cookie dough. The three winning models were used for cream cheese frosting as well. She went through a gallon of cream and made over 200 portions of cookie dough during 15 hours of testing for this review.