Does your Kitchen Aid save you money? Via Shutterstock
Hubs bugged me for more than a year before I gave in and bought him a KitchenAid for his birthday. And it turns out we are saving a lot of money on groceries because we use our KitchenAid for so many foods we would otherwise buy. A bunch of readers helped me brainstorm ideas for this post on our Facebook page. Don’t miss the conversation!
Here are 14 foods we save money on by making in our Kitchen Aid.
1. Bread crumbs. Does anybody eat the ends? We do when we don’t have another loaf on hand. Then I freeze the ends and, until recently, used the hand grater to make bread crumbs. This morning I tossed five or six end slices that I’d been saving in the freezer (yes, I’m a freezer diva) and my KitchenAid churned them into bread crumbs in two minutes flat! I’m never buying bread crumbs again!
2. Shredded cheese. Aside from saving money, if you shred your own cheese you can avoid additives and preservatives.
3. Grated almonds. Why buy fancy sliced almonds when you can grind up almonds in your KitchenAid?
4. Ground meat. This requires an attachment and a firm stomach. But at least you know exactly what is going into your ground meat.
5. Fruit leather. Got a dehydrator? Make delicious and extremely cheap fruit leather by pureeing your choice of fruit in your KitchenAid, then drying it in your dehydrator. Great for fruit you’ve bought in bulk or that is starting to turn.
6. Frosting. Just mix a bit of softened butter, confectioners sugar, and a teaspoon or two of milk is required to make frosting. Thanks for the suggestion, Tara!
7. Hummus. You may need a Kitchen Aid attachment or a food processor for this one. (I’ve never actually tried making hummus in my Kitchen Aid, only in my blender. For the record, it’s a lot cheaper to make your own hummus.) Thanks Sola, Erica, and Tammy!
8. Whipped cream. Pour heavy cream into your mixer, beat on high, and turn it off when stiff peaks form. I add a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla. If you whip it too much, it’ll turn to butter! Thanks, Tammy!
9. Brown sugar. Tammy gave me this idea – still waiting for a recipe. Do you just add molasses to white sugar to make brown sugar?
10. Pizza dough. I use the recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. Thanks, Tammy!
11. Salsa and pico de gallo. Thanks Ceri, Nikki, and Debi! Debi says, “Fresh tomatoes make ALL the difference!” Cheri says, “tastes sooo much better fresh than from a jar.”
12. Almond butter. Not sure of the recipe for this one as Pam suggested it. Do you need a food processor, or can a regular Kitchen Aid make it? Or maybe you need to use a specific Kitchen Aid attachment? Thanks, Pam!
13. Smoothies. Yazmin shared a bunch of smoothie recipes way back when. Thanks, Nikki!
14. Shortbreads. Thanks, Tara!
Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price.
This isn’t a dedicated post??? All those plugs–and links. I ask because you could have used the generic word “mixer.”
@Diane Nope! I just wanted to showcase all the things I do and can do with my Kitchen Aid Mixer. I included links with my affiliate code to buy a similar mixer on Amazon in case anyone has been thinking about buying one. I appreciate your feedback about too many links. Next time I won’t use so many.
When I mentioned all those links, it wasn’t my intent to be critical. My point was that with all the references to KitchenAid AND there being more links than usual in a post (at least I think so), it seemed as if it were a dedicated post.
Do you have a special attachment for shredding cheese? I shred cheese in my Cuisinart but I would love to find more uses for my KitchenAid. I registered for it when we got married and have used it exactly once because I’m not a huge baker and didn’t realize all this other stuff I could do! Scott makes fun of me every time he sees it on the counter 🙂
@Julie Hills Funny story. The year I gave hubs the kitchen aid for his birthday, we were visiting my family in CA and when my Mom saw him open the Kitchen Aid, she ran up into the attic and brought down all her attachments and gave them to us! We have three or four different grinder attachments, plus a pasta thing that looks too convoluted to try. 😛 But I use the grater all the time. It’s actually not that hard to set up, and so much easier than grating by hand, especially if I need a lot of grated cheese.
My mom usually adds potatoes and shredded cheese in ground meat. We are the one who shred the cheese by the way. 🙂
@Clarrise Great tip! I bet that makes the ground meat even tastier.
Julia, I think a Frugalista like you will appreciate the deal I got on my long-wanted Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer last weekend. Here’s how it went down: I tracked the online prices at several sites for 2 weeks so I had a sense of what the prices were in many places. Last Saturday, Kohl’s was having a 10% off appliance sale; I went to the site via Ebates for an additional 3% rebate; I used a coupon code (valid that day) for 20% off; I got $50 in Kohl’s cash; $20 in Kohl’s gift card from Kitchen Aid’s rebate; I signed up for Kohl’s e-mails to get a coupon for $5 off + 10% off future purchases; free shipping (except for a $7.50 shipping surcharge, because the mixer is a whale at 26 pounds), and because I live in NH, there was no sales tax….when all was said and done, the $349.99 sticker price was brought down to $176. Pretty much 1/2 off. (I wish I had remembered to put the purchase on my 1% cash rewards card, but oh well — too busy scoring bigger discounts). The mixer was delivered yesterday, so I only had to wait 5 days to get it. I’m thrilled and can’t wait to start the holiday baking season! Now, I am guessing that if I had waited for Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals, I could have saved a bundle, too…but I thought the price was more than fair, and by stacking all those discounts, it really paid off. Let the baking begin!
@Jeannie Oh. My. God. You are *such* an awesome bargain babe. I’m so impressed. You totally made my week!
Glad of it, Julia — but there’s a fun P.S. to the story. When I called the Kitchen Aid hotline to check on the paperwork I needed to send for the rebate, the woman said that my discount wasn’t a $20 Kohl’s gift card — it was $40 because Kitchen Aid based the amount on the original retail price (I had assumed it was on the sale price). So that knocked the actual out-of-pocket-after-everything price down to $156. I was stoked! But I also know that the planets rarely line up this perfectly, and I will have to accept that I will never have such a bargain-a-palooza moment again!