How can I have "minimum-stability": "stable" in my composer.json and install alpha version of a contrib module?

Question

Trying to update Drupal core to 9.4.7 with composer update "drupal/core-*" --with-all-dependencies, I got 9.5.0-beta1 version.
Digging a little in Drupal Answers, I found 'Update installs a beta version' and 'How do I update from 9.0.10 to 9.1.0?'.
So I changed my composer.json to "minimum-stability": "stable".
But then I had an issue with Mime Mail contrib module which only version for Drupal 9 is 8.x-1.0-alpha4.

The only solution I found was to

1. remove Mime Mail
2. update Drupal with composer
3. go back to "minimum-stability": "dev"
4. install Mime Mail with Composer

I'm pretty sure this is not the best way to do it...
Any advice on how to handle this situation?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Answering the title:

How can I have "minimum-stability": "stable" in my composer.json and install alpha version of a contrib module?

All you need to do is specify version@alpha for that module in composer.json.

For example, my composer.json has minimum-stability: "beta", but I have the alpha version of the Field Tools module installed as a dev dependency:

  "drupal/field_tools": "^1@alpha",