We made a lot of cookies, cakes and whipped cream to determine our top picks.
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Whether you’re making sweet treats like cookies or savory sides such as mashed potatoes, mixing by hand can be tiring. A stand mixer is a great tool to ease the workload, but it can be pricey and bulky to store. This is where a good electric hand mixer comes in. It can whip up your favorite recipes at a fraction of the price of a stand mixer, and it doesn't require much space.
What's the best hand mixer for most people? Our top-tested model for 2024 is the Breville Handy Mix Scraper, which is suitable for a wide range of home cooks. While it costs over $100, we think the price is well worth it given its versatility (it offers multiple attachments and nine speed settings) and useful features, like a built-in light and timer. If you're on a tighter budget, we recommend the Hamilton Beach Electric Hand Mixer.
In the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, we’ve tested over 33 hand mixers and stand mixers in the last two decades. Our evaluation of hand mixers includes rating how well they perform when beating egg whites, whipping cream and mixing cookie dough. We assess how easy each is to operate, noting the ease of navigating different speed settings, switching out attachments and cleaning.
You can read more about how we evaluate hand mixers in our Lab — plus everything you need to know to shop for your perfect hand mixer — at the end of this guide. If you're looking for more kitchen tools to speed up your prep, check out our guides to the best food processors, mini food processors and immersion blenders.
Breville’s hand mixer earned top scores in our testing, excelling at whipping egg whites, beating cake batter, mixing oatmeal cookie dough and kneading bread dough. This nine-speed model can recognize which attachment you’ve inserted (beaters, dough hooks or whisks) and automatically adjust the speed required, whether you're mixing something heavier, like kneading dough, or lighter, such as whip cream.
The beaters have a silicone coating to help prevent scratches in cookware and to dampen the loud clanking that’s sometimes caused by beaters hitting the sides of the bowl. Plus, it has a built-in timer and a light that turns on during beating to help you see into the bowl so you can ensure everything is incorporated. It also comes with a case, so you can easily store the attachments. It's a bit pricey, but we think the extra features and attachments make it worth the splurge.
Hamilton Beach hand mixers have performed well in past testing, so it's no surprise this six-speed hand mixer performed well. It whipped up heavy cream with ease and made cake batter that was smooth. The handle was comfortable to hold, though the mixer felt heavier than some others we've tested.
It was easy to use with a simple flip switch that toggles between speeds. The mixer is equipped with six speed settings and a "QuickBurst" button, which provides an extra dose of power to whip through tough ingredients like firm cream cheese.
Our pros appreciated the bowl rest feature, which allows you to rest the back of the mixer on the edge of the bowl, so you can keep the beaters securely in the bowl rather than dripping on the counter when you need to take a pause. Another particularly handy feature is the convenient snap-on case to neatly store the two beaters, whisk and cord along with the mixer.
We were also impressed with the Hamilton Beach Professional Cordless Electric Hand Mixer, which eliminates the pesky cord getting in the way while you mix. We found it was louder than other hand mixers, but it did well in our tests: It produced smooth cake batter and fluffy whipped cream.
The Braun MultiMix 5 is a versatile hand mixer with nine speed options. It comes with two "MultiWhisk" beaters, which the brand says are uniquely shaped to whip, mix and beat, and it also includes two dough hooks. This mixer aced our egg white whipping test and our cookie dough test, so you can use it for delicate foods and heavy baked goods alike. We liked that the rotating dial allows you to easily swap between incorporating flour into a batter and folding nuts into a dough.
Our experts found the whisks easy to clean because the tines are wider and more spread out than typical beaters. Plus, all of the attachments are dishwasher safe. We appreciated the storage pouch to keep them all together. One note: The mixer comes in black only.
This Cuisinart hand mixer comes with a versatile array of accessories for a variety of baking needs: two beaters for beating cake batter or buttercream frosting, a whisk for whipping egg whites or cream, two dough hooks for kneading bread or pizza dough and a spatula to help you scrape down the side of your bowl. It has nine speeds, including three low-start speeds that help prevent splattering, so you can gently mix ingredients on the first or second speed or beat through tough batter with the eighth or ninth.
All of the attachments are dishwasher safe and store neatly in a snap-on case. We appreciated that the cord swivels so the mixer can easily be used by right- or left-handed people. It checked all the boxes of what we are looking for in a corded model. Note: In our testing, we did have to scrape down the bowl regularly to help mix the cake batter.
If you're someone who forgets to soften your butter ahead of baking, this hand mixer from Oster is a great option. It has a built-in fan that will blow warm air into your mixing bowl to gently soften cold butter — no more waiting around for uneven microwaving.
In our testing, we found that it was able to soften butter within one and a half minutes, in contrast to the 30 minutes it usually takes for butter to soften when left at room temperature. One of our pros has used this hand mixer at home for over two years and loves the heat-softening technology. They also found this extremely durable, mixing thick cookie doughs with ease.
In our tests, we liked how comfortable the handle was to hold, and we appreciate that the base can sit upright when not in use so dirty beaters won't touch the kitchen countertop.
It has seven speed settings and can beat through thick batters, whip cream and more. It comes with beaters, dough hooks and a whisk attachment that all fit into a snap-on container. However, take note that all of the attachments are hand-wash only, and we found this model heavier than others on our list.
With the KitchenAid Go Cordless Hand Mixer, you won’t be tethered to an outlet or worried about a cord getting in the way. This pick has a rechargeable battery, which allows you to use it wherever you want. According to the brand, a fully charged battery provides 60 minutes of continuous run time. Our pros appreciate that the battery is removable, so you can simply swap out the battery with a spare (sold separately) if the battery dies, unlike other cordless mixers where the charger attaches to the mixer.
It comes with two stainless steel beaters but no whisk or dough hooks. When we tested this hand mixer, it excelled at making airy whipped cream that doesn’t fall flat. It has a "soft start" feature that gradually brings up the speed to help prevent splattering, and we found in our testing that the speed does need to be gradually turned up or it will splash liquid ingredients like heavy cream. Bonus: This is part of a system of cordless appliances including a food chopper, coffee bean grinder, personal blender, immersion blender and even a kitchen vacuum, all of which are sold separately.
We've tested more than 33 mixers in the last two decades, and in our most recent test, we tested 22 hand mixers in the Lab and at home.
During this round of testing hand mixers in the Good Housekeeping Institute, we assessed the variety of speeds, the ease of attaching the beaters and attachments and the comfort level when holding the hand mixer. We also rated how easy it was the use the controls and to clean the mixer.
We mixed oatmeal cookie dough to see how well the beaters mixed tough ingredients, kneaded white bread dough and beat yellow cake mix.
We whipped egg whites and heavy cream to assess how well the hand mixer incorporated air. When making our picks, we also considered how intuitive each model was to use and factored in its ergonomics and any useful features and included attachments.
✔️ Power: A good hand mixer uses around 200 to 300 watts of power. This power will help it muscle through tough cookie dough filled with nuts, oats or chocolate chips without slowing down or shutting off. All of the picks on our list fall within this range or higher so you can get most mixing jobs accomplished. ✔️ Speed settings: We prefer mixers that have several speed settings to choose from. Low settings are great when you need to mix gently or avoid splattering; high settings are useful for mixing dense batters and ingredients.
✔️ Comfort: Since you’ll be holding up the hand mixer for an extended period of time, look for lighter mixers with a comfortable grip. A heavy mixer can tire your arm out quickly. We suggest shopping in person and lifting and holding the hand mixers on display, if possible.
✔️ Cord vs. cordless: If you’re short on outlets in your kitchen or if they’re in inconvenient locations, you may want to consider a cordless hand mixer. You do have to remember to charge them regularly, but they grant you freedom to work in any area of the kitchen. They're also easy to use by both right- and left-handed people. If you’d prefer a model with a cord, consider a swivel cord so it stays out of the way when you're using the mixer.
✔️ Accessories: All hand mixers come with detachable beaters, but only some models include other attachments, such as whisks or dough hooks. Although additional attachments do usually increase the price of the model, they give your hand mixer more versatility.
✔️ Storage: Extra accessories are nice to have, but they can get lost in drawers easily, so we recommend models that have a snap-on storage case that houses the accessories with the mixer so they’re all in the same place when you need them.
A hand mixer gives you extra power to fully incorporate ingredients and get a batter velvety smooth without tiring out your hand and arm muscles. While there are certainly some batters, doughs or sauces that can be hand-mixed, foods like homemade aioli, whipped cream or shredded chicken can be made quickly with the help of a mixer.
Most hand mixers are more affordable than stand mixers and can be stored more easily since they're less bulky and take up less counter space. They can also be easily moved from one side of your kitchen to another. They can be used in a pot on your stove or with any bowl, whereas a stand mixer pairs only with its own bowl.
Holding a hand mixer at high speed for a long time can tire your hand because of the force required to keep the mixer steady. With a stand mixer, you simply have to push a button and the mixer will do all of the work for you. Tough doughs and ingredients that need to be whipped for more than 10 minutes are best handled with a stand mixer. Quick jobs, lighter doughs and batters, egg whites and whipped creams are well suited to a hand mixer.
This article was originally written by Eva Bleyer, a reviews analyst in the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab. In addition to hand mixers, she has tested many kitchen appliance categories, including induction ranges and gas ranges, microwaves, blenders and so much more. She graduated from NYU with a bachelor of science in Food Studies, Nutrition and Public Health and is a trained chef through the Natural Gourmet Institute. She loves how easy and convenient hand mixers are.
This article was most recently updated by Jamie Kim Ueda. She is a consumer products expert with over 17 years of experience in areas of product development and manufacturing. At the Good Housekeeping Institute, she has tested products and written reviews across dozens of categories. In addition to hand mixers, she has tested espresso machines, coffee makers, water filters and much more.
Eva (she/her) is a reviews analyst in the Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, where she tests kitchen gear, home appliances and culinary innovations. She graduated from NYU with a bachelor of science in food studies, nutrition and public health and is a trained chef through the Natural Gourmet Institute. Eva has more than 10 years of experience in the food industry, working as a food stylist, personal chef and marketing manager.
Jamie Ueda is a consumer products expert with over 17 years of experience in areas of product development and manufacturing. She has held leading roles at both mid-size consumer goods companies and one of the most notable and largest apparel brands in the world. Jamie has contributed to several of the GH Institute Labs, including Kitchen Appliances, Media and Tech, Textiles and Home Appliances. In her free time she enjoys cooking, traveling, and working out.
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