The Best Milk Frothers (2024)

I’m an associate staff writer covering kitchen gear. Prior to joining Wirecutter, I worked as a cheesemaker at a small farm in Vermont. I worked with hundreds of gallons of raw milk on a daily basis, becoming intimately familiar with the properties and flavor of milk.
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If you find yourself dreaming of a cappuccino or driving 20 minutes out of your way for an iced drink topped with cold foam, this guide is for you.

Milk frothers make your favorite café drink easily accessible from home, without adding too much time or effort to your morning routine. And no more paying the lactose-intolerant tax: A good milk frother can make sweet, thick milk foam from nondairy milks, too.

They’re also handy for more than just frothing milk. If you’re taking powdered supplements, milk frothers are a quick and convenient way to blend them into your drink, so you don’t end up with a glob of dry protein powder in your last sip. The same goes for whisking matcha or chocolate mix. Some pitcher-style milk frothers, with their heating capabilities, can even melt chocolate for hot cocoa.

Milk frothers come in a range of styles: Handheld electric whisks, self-heating pitchers, and manual frothers (which often look like a French press but are designed differently). We narrowed down a few important features to consider across every style when deciding which models to test and recommend.

Foam variation: If you walk into a café today, most steamed milk drinks are made with what’s called microfoam—a pourable, hom*ogeneous and shiny milk foam with nearly invisible air bubbles. At its best, microfoam is rich, smooth, and velvety on the tongue. It blends seamlessly with your drink, but it can vary slightly in texture and thickness. Traditionally, foam for a cappuccino is “stretched” (aerated) a bit longer and is therefore a little stiffer than the runnier foam favored for lattes and latte art.

But at home, some people may simply prefer a big plop of spoonable foam, while others may favor the pourable, velvety consistency of microfoam.

To gauge each frother’s ability to serve a range of needs, we tested every foam setting and whisk provided with each frother. We tasted a spoonful of all the foam we produced, noting texture and flavor. We liked milk foam that was rich, smooth, and sweet, without any unpleasant bubble-popping sensations.

Cold foam: Sometimes you want all the luxury of a frothed drink in the summer without the extra temperature spike. We only tested milk frothers that could make foam hot or cold, so you can have your icy latte and drink it too. We frothed cold milk straight from the fridge and checked the temperature before and after frothing, to ensure that the milk didn’t warm up too much during the process.

Mix-ins: Using a milk frother is a handy way to quickly incorporate powders into milk, whether it’s a powdered supplement, matcha, or chocolate mix. We used each frother to mix a tablespoon of cocoa powder into cold milk and poured the resulting chocolate mixture through a sieve to see if any powdered lumps remained. For pitcher-style frothers, we also made hot chocolate with mini chocolate chips and poured that through a sieve as well.

Milk variety: A good milk frother should be able to produce nice foam regardless of your milk preferences. We chose three types of milk to test with: whole milk, oat milk, and almond milk. These milks have different amounts of protein (which stabilizes the bubbles) and fat (which destabilizes but adds gloss and creaminess), so they each foam a little differently.

Whole milk, with its abundance of protein and fat, is the best milk for microfoam and the default in cafés. We considered it to be a fundamental test for these milk frothers—if they can’t froth whole milk, they won’t serve anyone well, dairy drinker or not.

Oat milk has little protein, but it’s still relatively fatty for a nondairy milk. So while it’s tricky to whip oat milk into a stable foam, it’s a little easier to achieve the desired creaminess. Almond milk, on the other hand, is severely lacking in both protein and fat. It’s a thin nondairy milk that is notoriously difficult to froth.

Using these two milks in our tests served as a solid representation of how these milk frothers work with a range of nondairy milks, regardless of fat content.

Temperature: The Specialty Coffee Association recommends steaming milk to a temperature between 131 °F and 149 °F. That’s when milk tastes its sweetest and when it’s most amenable to producing a stable, silky foam.

When testing pitchers that heat the milk, we measured the temperature of the milk foam at the end of each pitcher’s frothing cycle and tested the accuracy of variable temperature settings. For handheld and manual milk frothers, we heated milk to a temperature within that range prior to frothing, for optimal foam quality.

Pour: We poured the foam we made from each pitcher-style frother into another cup to test the effectiveness of the pitcher’s spout. We looked for a smooth pour, control, and the ability to pour a thin stream of textured milk. We also challenged each pitcher—by holding them at odd angles, suddenly cutting off milk flow, and attempting generally haphazard pours—to see how easily they dripped.

Cleaning: Dried or scalded milk is a pain to remove from a surface, so it’s especially important that milk frothers are easy to clean. We favored milk frothers with removable components that were dishwasher-safe or submersible in water. (The Instant MagicFroth 9-in-1’s pitcher and the Golde Superwhisk’s whisk are detachable for cleaning.) We found it awkward and irritating to effectively scrub and rinse pitchers that can’t be removed from their electric base.

The Instant MagicFroth 9-in-1 is a little countertop barista, heating and frothing your milk for you in a matter of minutes. It produces velvety milk foam at three temperatures, even if it’s straight from the fridge, and can admirably froth even nondairy milk into a thick, stable foam.

Like our other picks, the MagicFroth can quickly mix powdered additions into cold milk, but it can also melt and mix small chocolate pieces for a rich, café-quality hot cocoa. The stainless steel pitcher is comfortable to hold, easy to pour, and best of all, it’s dishwasher-safe.

The controls are straightforward. The control panel on the MagicFroth’s base is simple to operate, with buttons for temperature control and froth level, as well as a button each for starting and canceling the frothing program. As basic as this sounds, we found the separate start and stop buttons especially useful because you don’t have to worry about the machine automatically starting a program while you’re still choosing the settings.

The MagicFroth has three temperature settings (cold, warm, and hot), as well as three froth settings (stir, foam, and extra foam). These settings can be used in any combination, which gives you a bit more agency over your drink.

It makes delicious foam at the right temperature. Sweet, dense, and decadent, the foam from the MagicFroth is tasty enough to eat by the spoonful—which is exactly what we did. The regular foam setting makes silky, glossy microfoam that, with a few hard swirls of the pitcher, can be deftly poured into the perfect latte. With a bump up to the extra foam setting, you get a slightly airier, stiffer foam fit for a traditional cappuccino.

Heating milk on the warm temperature setting consistently brings it to just slightly above 140 °F, the literal sweet spot for steamed milk. The hot setting brings your milk to around 165 °F, for those who prefer a hotter, more custardy milk foam. When we made cold foam, our milk remained within 15 degrees of its refrigerator temperature, still refreshingly cool.

It handles mix-ins with ease. We used the highest temperature setting and the stir setting to make hot chocolate with mini chocolate chips. The resulting hot chocolate was completely smooth, with no trace of solid chocolate left either in the pitcher, whisk, or sieve. In order to fully mix cocoa powder with cold milk, we had to bump the stir setting up to foam, but the finished mixture was also entirely hom*ogeneous, without a single granule of unincorporated powder.

It’s dishwasher-safe. The MagicFroth’s stainless steel pitcher lifts off the powered base and doesn’t contain any electrical components. This means it can be submerged in soapy water or thrown in the top rack of the dishwasher along with the lid and the whisk. This is especially handy if you’ve accidentally left the pitcher out and it’s caked in stubborn dried milk.

It pours smoothly. With a sharp spout and a design that’s similar to a milk steaming pitcher, the MagicFroth pours cleanly, with no dripping or dribbling. It offers a good amount of control, and is capable of pouring a thin stream of (finely textured) milk.

The whisk is magnetic. Keeping track of the small detachable whisks that come with pitcher-style milk frothers can be a difficult task, especially if they’re falling out of the pitcher. The whisk’s magnetism keeps it attached to the inside of the pitcher, so it’s not likely to land in your cup while you pour.

It also adds some assurance that the parts stay together when you’re not using them. If you’re prone to misplacing small items, you could even stick it on the side of your fridge (as long as you can remember it’s there).

It beeps when it’s done. In some small appliances, beeps and chimes can drive people up the wall. But with this machine, they’re actually pretty handy. Your milk shouldn’t sit for too long after it’s frothed, or it’ll start to cool and separate before you have a chance to enjoy it. Unless you want to hover over the frother, waiting for the moment it’s done (it really is mesmerizing to watch), you may appreciate the MagicFroth’s beeps when the frothing cycle is finished, so you know it’s time to pour your drink. But if you really can’t stand it, the sound can be turned off.

The MagicFroth comes with a one-year warranty.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The stainless steel pitcher gets hot. You have to be careful not to touch its sides, or the platform it sits on, after heating milk. Fortunately, the handle, while also steel, stays cool and is large enough to keep your knuckles from brushing against the body of the pitcher.

It takes a long time. The Instant MagicFroth is by no means instant. When heating cold milk, the cycle can take five minutes and occasionally a little longer depending on ambient temperatures and the temperature of your milk. The results are well worth the short wait, but if you don’t have time to spare, the handheld Golde Superwhisk can whip up foam in under a minute (though you still need to heat the milk first), and the pitcher-style Breville Milk Cafe can heat and froth milk within two.

It can only make one or two servings at a time. Though its maximum capacity for heating milk is 500 mL (about 2 cups), the MagicFroth can only make thick foam from 200 mL (under 1 cup) of milk at a time. This is enough for two drinks (or one generously milky drink), but it doesn’t serve a crowd. If you foresee yourself regularly making lattes and hot chocolate for a group, you may be better served by the Milk Cafe, which has over twice the capacity.

Frothing milk isn’t a Herculean task. But the Golde Superwhisk still approaches it with considerable muscle. With its strong motor, double-coil whisk, and two super-fast speed options, the Superwhisk excelled in every one of our tests. It produced rich, delectable, and voluminous milk foam with both dairy and nondairy milks. And if you’re taking any powdered supplements (or if you just want a heavenly smooth chocolate milk) the Superwhisk quickly blends dry mixtures into your drink of choice––cold or hot.

It is powerful. The Superwhisk stood out from the competition from the start of our testing. It doubled the volume of each type of hot milk within the first 15 seconds and never needed longer than a minute to froth milk to perfection, cold or hot. We were most impressed by its ability to produce true microfoam with plain almond milk—a feat that many milk frothers struggled with.

It has two speeds. The Superwhisk’s first speed is already impressively fast compared with other whisks we tested, and its second speed is even faster. The higher speed can create a swirling vortex of milk in any cup, which is helpful for evenly aerating your milk and creating a consistent microfoam.

It’s rechargeable. The Superwhisk is rechargeable and comes with a USB charging cable; you don’t need to worry about having fresh batteries on hand. It also arrives fully charged, so you can get right to frothing. We used it over a dozen times, and it didn’t need to be charged once during our testing.

It’s comfortable to use. With its relative heft and cylindrical design, we were skeptical that the Superwhisk would feel comfortable to hold. But despite its lack of contours, it fit naturally in the palm of our hands. The motor is powerful, but it runs smoothly and quietly, without any excessive vibrations or jolts.

It comes with a cap. Its lid is sturdy, encapsulating both the whisk and the rod to protect them from any damage in storage or transit. The lid twists to lock onto the handle, ensuring it stays attached even if knocked around.

It quickly incorporates powdered mix-ins. Protein powder, matcha, chocolate malt: None are a match for the Superwhisk. Within seconds, it completely dispersed cocoa powder into cold milk without leaving even a speck of dry powder visible in the pitcher.

The whisk is dishwasher-safe. Handheld milk frothers are not difficult to clean by hand. Fill a cup with a bit of dish soap and water, froth it up with your milk frother, and rinse the whisk. But if your milk frother needs a deep clean, or if you don’t want to spend the extra minute of cleaning, the whisk on the Superwhisk detaches from the base and can be thrown in the top rack of the dishwasher.

The Superwhisk is covered by a two-year warranty.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It’s easy to over-froth. The Superwhisk’s powerful motor works quickly, doubling the volume of milk within the first 15 seconds of frothing. But this speed does mean it’s easy to end up with stiffer foam than you set out to create. We’d recommend stopping soon after you see your milk double.

It’s heavier than most handheld milk frothers. It was the heaviest handheld milk frother we tested, at 4.55 ounces—about the same weight as a small banana. But we found it was still comfortable to hold while operating (and thanks to its speed, you needn’t hold it for very long).

Golde doesn’t offer returns. If you’re not a fan of the Superwhisk, or if you’ve decided you don’t want it in the end, you’re out of luck for returns. Golde only offers a replacement milk frother or store credit if you have any issues. If you’re unsure whether you’ll keep your milk frother, we’d recommend trying the MatchaBar Electric Matcha Whisk, which performed identically to the Superwhisk in our tests (we suspect they are the same white-label product). The MatchaBar whisk ships free and can be returned through Amazon and the company’s own site, but it doesn’t have a warranty.

The Aerolatte Original Steam Free Milk Frother is the handheld milk frother that most people probably know best. And for good reason: It has a classic, easily comprehensible design and froths nearly as well as the Golde Superwhisk, but for about $15 less. It whisks up a thick milk foam, performs well with nondairy milks, and can effectively blend in powdered mixes.

It’s simple but well made. The Aerolatte frother doesn’t have any extra speeds, detachable whisks, or charging ports. But it’s not just a cheap hunk of plastic. The stainless steel whisk has noticeably thick, sturdy coils, and the rod feels more resistant to bending than some other handheld frothers we tested.

It makes great milk foam. The Aerolatte frother had a steady performance in all of our tests, producing foam that was tasty, silky, and uniform. Although the foam it made was slightly looser than what we made with the Superwhisk and it takes a little more time, it was still able to double the volume of the milk and achieve a pourable, microfoam-ish quality.

Among the handheld milk frothers we tested, its results with nondairy milk were second only to the Superwhisk: smooth and consistent, with a creamy mouthfeel.

It’s battery-powered. For people who don’t want to rely on an outlet to recharge their milk frother or who foresee bringing one on long camping trips, the Aerolatte frother is a good option. It takes two AA batteries, which are included. We didn’t need to replace the batteries during our testing, but we have seen reviews that say the provided batteries don’t last as long as store-bought ones.

The Aerolatte whisk is one of the lightest handheld milk frothers we tested. It weighs just slightly over 3.5 ounces—about the same as a deck of playing cards.

But it stutters with thicker milks. Though it made delicious milk foam with both dairy and nondairy milk, it did seem to struggle slightly in our whole milk tests. As the whole milk thickened, we noticed that the Aerolatte frother seemed to stutter, especially if we pushed it deeper into the milk. It wasn’t significant enough for us to flag as an issue, and it didn’t affect its frothing ability, but it does indicate that the Aerolatte frother’s motor is less powerful than that of the Golde Superwhisk.

The Aerolatte milk frother is also covered by a two-year warranty.

One popular at-home method for frothing milk uses a tool that some coffee drinkers may already have in the cabinet: a French press. The proponents of this method claim that the same French press that you’d use for coffee can make delectable milk foam and cut out the need for extra devices.

We love a multitasker, so we put this trick to the test, pitting one of our French press picks, the Bodum Chambord, against the Bodum Latteo, a manual milk frother with a similar design. But we found that the two devices are not as similar as they look, and both require more effort than any of our picks.

The Latteo has some advantages over a French press that make it easier to use for frothing milk. The plunger moves with little resistance, allowing you to rapidly plunge the milk (though it’s still not effortless), and the mesh screen slides all the way to the bottom of the carafe, so you can froth a small serving of milk.

In comparison, French presses are not made to be plunged rapidly, so as not to agitate the grounds. To prevent grounds from escaping into your coffee, the filter sits flush with the sides of the carafe, which causes resistance as you push down. The filter also doesn’t go all the way to the bottom of the carafe, since it’s designed to leave space for coffee grounds.

The Latteo’s lid has a large, open gap so both milk and foam can smoothly flow from the spout, whereas a French press has a filter over the spout, and you need to remove the lid and plunger to pour milk foam.

The Latteo made outstanding frothed dairy milk. We frothed whole milk for one minute and were rewarded with a luxuriously creamy, silky, and consistent microfoam. It didn’t perform well with oat milk, making a very loose froth with large air bubbles, but it had surprisingly impressive results with almond milk. After a minute and a half, our almond milk had doubled, and although it had large air bubbles, it had a smooth, thick mouthfeel.

The Chambord made very similar, if slightly less dense, milk foam across the board. But it was an absolute slog to use.

We frothed our milk for one minute, which produced a lovely (though somewhat loose) microfoam, but we were worn out. And unless you have a small French press, you’ll need to use a lot more milk to effectively froth, since the plunger doesn’t reach the bottom of the carafe. We used a 32-ounce Chambord and had to use at least a cup of milk.

If you’re loath to buy a dedicated milk frother, your French press will work fine, though the Latteo certainly makes the process much easier. But manual labor isn’t a necessity for your morning latte. Our picks are quick and effective—and don’t leave your shoulders aching the next day.

If pouring latte art is your main priority, and you prefer dairy milk: The Subminimal NanoFoamer Lithium claims to make barista-worthy microfoam, and it does not disappoint. When using whole milk, we were able to repeatedly produce glossy, uniform microfoam with a dessert-like sweetness and a pourable consistency. The NanoFoamer can accommodate a large variance in technique, producing similar results even when your timing or angle aren’t quite right. But it struggled to froth nondairy milk. The mesh screens are also difficult to remove, and the inside of the whisk is hard to thoroughly clean, which means it can get pretty gunky with dried milk.

If you’re serving up multiple drinks: Breville’s The Milk Cafe was the largest pitcher-style milk frother we tested, with the capacity to froth 500 mL (about 2 cups) of milk. It can also heat, but not froth, up to 750 mL (about 3 cups) of milk.

The froth that it produces is voluminous and airy, both for dairy and nondairy milks, but it lacks the richness and density that we were looking for. The Milk Cafe was also the most expensive milk frother in our testing lineup.

What it really excels at is precise temperature control. The pitcher offers a wide range of temperatures, from under 120 °F to above 160 °F. When we lined the dial up with our desired temperature, the resulting milk was the exact same temperature, down to the degree. This might not be important to some people, but if you’re particular about the temperature of your drink, it’s an impressive feature.

Handheld frothers

The Zulay Kitchen Premium Milk Frother with Stand has a powerful motor, but partway through our testing, it started to give off a strong, unpleasant odor. Its power button is located on top of the handle and needs to be held down for the frother to run, which is mildly annoying.

We did not manage to test the IKEA Produkt Milk-frother. We were intrigued by the $2 price tag, but it didn’t survive the trip from IKEA to our office. It’s not packaged in a box, but rather is zip-tied to a piece of cardboard, exposing it to the harsh environment of your shopping bag. By the time we tried to use it, the rod had bent out of place. If you’re thinking of grabbing one on your next IKEA trip, we recommend carrying it carefully.

Pitcher-style frothers

The Instant Milk Frother made an inconsistent pitcher of foam, with alternating layers of un-frothed milk, thick foam, and thin foam. It struggled to froth almond milk and consistently overflowed when filled to the max foam line. Since this model’s pitcher wasn’t removable, this overflow was especially frustrating, creating messes that were hard to clean while trying to avoid the machine’s electronics.

The Nespresso Aeroccino4 made dry milk foam on every setting, with stiff bubbles reminiscent of soap suds. It performed better with nondairy milk but not as well as our picks did.

We tested an older version of the Taotronics Paris Rhône 011. It made creamy, sweet foam with every type of milk. But the pitcher barely has a spout, and is prone to dribbling milk down its side after pouring, which then pools in a tiny seam at the base of the pitcher (hello, mold). And because the pitcher has electronic elements, cleaning it is tricky, especially if said electronic components have milk dripping on them.

The Taotronics Miroco Milk Frother 005 has a loose rod in the center of the pitcher that acts as an anchor for the whisk. But the rod has to be held down or removed while pouring, or else it will fall right into your drink (the metal may also be a little hot depending on what setting you use). The frother also made a high-pitched rattling sound while running, which, while tolerable, was unpleasant.

Of the pitcher-style frothers we tested, the Capresso Froth Pro had one of the longest run times to make cold foam, and the foam it produced, whether cold or hot, was disappointingly loose. Our pitcher-style pick, the Instant Pot MagicFroth 9-in-1, took longer to make hot foam, but its results were dense, silky, and actually worth the wait.

This article was edited by Marilyn Ong and Marguerite Preston.