Mixers can do much more than beat egg whites and prepare cake batter. A guide to must-have mixer accessories will show you other menu items you can prepare with the right attachments.

Food Processor

A food processor attachment for a stand mixer on your worktable makes trims prep time and mess. These attachments can dice, shred, or julienne a wide array of foods from cheese to fruits and veggies.

Pasta Machine

House-made pasta is a draw for foodies, but it is time-consuming. Get the best of both worlds with a pasta maker attachment for your mixer. Pasta maker attachments can roll and cut dough, and some of them can create different pasta shapes including rigatoni and fusilli.

Grinder

Streamline the process of making breadcrumbs, salsa, or ground meats with a grinder attachment. Make freshly grated hard cheeses for tabletop dispensers with this handy and versatile accessory.

Sausage Maker/Shredder

A refinement to the grinder, an accessory that slices, shreds, and feeds ground meats into sausage casing can expand your menu. The shredder can handle cheese for pizza and create the cabbage/carrot combo for coleslaw. Add a sausage stuffer to feed meats from your grinder into casings for your own brand of sausages with your selection of meats and spices.

Spiralizer

This one is so much fun you might want to put it front and center in an open kitchen. A spiralizer will peel fruits and veggies, but also turn them into healthy pasta alternatives. Create carrot strings for salads, or beet-zucchini spaghetti as a side.

Grain Mill

The growing popularity of heirloom grains suggests that a grain mill would come in handy. Grind your own fresh flour from your selection of grains. These can be set to grind more coarsely for cracked grains to add to breads and other baked goods.

Ice Cream Maker

Turn a stand mixer into a dessert maker with an ice cream maker. These must-have mixer accessories don’t require rock salt or ice, and can whip up batches of your own recipes in thirty minutes or so. Adding house-made flavors as special desserts will have patrons asking to review the dessert menu one more time.

Commercial Mixer Accessories

Most commercial floor mixers come with the basics—a dough hook and paddle mixer. But you can add grinders, graters, slicers, and spiralizers to these big boys, too. Some models can accept bowl scraper attachments that eliminate the stop-start process of scraping the sides of the mixing bowl to create cake and flapjack batters. When you’re looking for a dough mixer for sale, find out what attachments are included and which you can add to turn the mixer into the versatile workhorse your kitchen requires.