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Our top picks include frothers from Instant, Breville, and Golde. pe porous pipe for underground communication pipeline
Our top pick is the Instant MagicFroth Milk Frother. It has multiple foam and heat settings and an approachable price point. For an upgrade pick, we recommend the Breville Milk Cafe Milk Frother, which comes with multiple whisk attachments and a custom temperature dial.
A perfectly executed latte or cappuccino really is something. But trying to mimic what you get at a coffee shop? That can be tough. However, an inexpensive milk frother can do the trick at home.
We tested a whopping 24 milk frothers to help you determine which will best suit your needs, whether you're whipping up cold foam or heating and frothing hot cocoa. We also asked coffee pros for their best milk frothing techniques.
The MagicFroth has three temperature settings and three foam settings, giving the user nine combinations to choose from. It whipped up silky, velvety milk foam that held its texture well, and its removable pitcher was easy to pour from.
Breville’s Milk Cafe has a custom temperature dial so you can pick exactly how hot or cold you’d like your milk to be. It also has a tapered pitcher that creates a strong vortex for silkier textures and two whisk attachments for different styles of milk foam.
With a simple interface, two foam settings, and a lower price point, the Instant Milk Frother is an affordable model that produces excellent foam. It also heats up quickly.
The Golde Superwhisk made great cold milk foam and comes with a cap for easy storage—and for travel, if frothing on-the-go is a priority. The Superwhisk is rechargeable, too.
Although slightly less powerful than the Golde Superwhisk, the Zulay did well in all of our tests. It comes with a stand for built-in counter storage, and it's often on sale on Amazon.
Foam is a liquid or solid that has trapped gas inside it. For this review, we will focus on milk—and what makes it particularly interesting. “What makes milk proteins unique is that they are highly soluble in water and they are surface active,” Dr. Thom Huppertz, a dairy science professor and editor-in-chief of the International Dairy Journal, told us when we interviewed him for a previous version of this story. “The only other substance that can foam like milk is eggs.”
But what does “surface active” mean? Basically, milk readily snags air molecules, making it easy to aerate. This is also why dairy milk froths better than plant-based milk—and why its foam holds up longer.
There are two other key factors in frothing: heat and fat content. Heat denatures milk proteins, exposing hydrophobic ends that readily attach to air (foam!). Fat, though, is actually a barrier to frothing, which is why non-fat milk foam is fluffier and more pillow-like than that made with whole milk.
When using an espresso machine, milk foam is created with a high-pressure steam wand that heats milk while whipping air into it. Home milk frothers work differently. They use a circular wire whisk attached to a motor that spins it and creates a vortex. This agitation is what makes air bubbles.
While both use a similar style circular whisk to create foam, countertop and handheld milk frothers work differently. Countertop models will warm milk through an electric heating element (similar to a kettle) and work automatically, but handheld milk frothers require you to heat the milk separately. With a handheld milk frother, you will also need to hold the whisk at the right depth and angle to create optimal foam texture.
Most models we tested were able to create good-quality milk foam. While some were better at making a silky, homogenized milk and foam mixture (like the Instant MagicFroth Milk Frother and Breville Milk Cafe Milk Frother), most were at least able to produce a stable, velvety foam layer that was good enough for at-home lattes or cappuccinos.
Frothers with limited settings fell short in our testing. The Spinn and Bodum frothers only had one setting for temperature and foam, which limited our options. Higher-end models with multiple settings let us customize our preferred drinking temperatures and foam thickness. But even low-cost models like the Instant Milk Frother had numerous settings for foam and temperature—key for those wanting to make both cappuccinos and lattes at home. And while handheld whisks like the Golde Superwhisk Milk Frother didn’t have built-in settings, their manual operation allowed us to add foam to our heart's desire.
While most milk frothers use similar circular wire whisks, the Breville Milk Cafe offers two whisks for creating different foams. The flatter disk produced a thinner, latte-style texture while the ridged whisk made airy cappuccino foam easily. We also liked the spiky whisk of the Capresso Froth Select Milk Frother, which was better at keeping foam mixed into the milk longer than a standard attachment.
Because countertop models are heating the milk from the bottom, most leave a cooked milk film on the base of the pitcher. While the sides of the pitchers were easy to rinse out, it was difficult to scrub the bottoms of narrow frothers like the Nestle Aeroccino 4. Wider pitchers were easier to scrub clean, but we appreciated detachable pitchers that were dishwasher-safe, like the Breville’s and Instant MagicFroth’s.
The best milk frothers create a silky, velvety microfoam that holds its texture long enough for you to enjoy your beverage. They also have multiple settings so you can customize your preferred temperature and foam levels, are easy to clean, and work well with dairy and non-dairy milk.
What we liked: The MagicFroth has a sleek interface with three foam and variable temperature settings. It created silky, well-incorporated microfoam at each setting and consistently hit temperatures of 140ºF and 160ºF. It was simple to set up, had a large capacity to accommodate multiple drinks at once, and its detachable pitcher was dishwasher-safe for easy cleanup. It also performed well with oat milk and cold foam. It’s a feature-rich milk frother with high performance and a moderate price point, making it a great choice for most people.
What we didn’t like: It takes a little longer than other models, with some frothing and heating cycles lasting almost five minutes.
What we liked: The Breville allows you to really customize the temperature of the milk (anywhere from 100ºF to over 160ºF, though Breville notes the ideal temperature as being around 140ºF). If you want to make a cappuccino, latte, or hot chocolate, it can do it all. The Breville comes with two whisks and we found the latte whisk did a great job at frothing non-dairy milk. Thanks to its 25-ounce capacity pitcher, it can froth enough milk for multiple drinks, but also works well with smaller volumes. There are some other handy usability features worth mentioning: The pitcher is dishwasher-safe for easy cleanup, there’s cord storage, and there’s a magnetic spot on the back for whisk storage.
What we didn’t like: The Breville’s pricey, but it’s also the best-performing model we tested. If you’re picky about milk texture and temperature we think it’s worth it.
What we liked: This model had a simple interface and only four settings: cold foam, warm latte foam, warm cappuccino foam, and hot milk. It did a good job differentiating between latte and cappuccino foam, and it consistently hit 145ºF for its warm setting and 165ºF for its hot setting. It made a solid cold foam, too. If you’re looking for a basic milk frother at a low price, we recommend this one.
What we didn’t like: We wish it had more settings and a bigger capacity, but at this price, we think it covers its bases well.
What we liked: The Golde Superwhisk has two speeds, which helped tailor foam amounts. Thanks to its dual-coiled head, it was also more powerful than other handheld frothers, creating silky-smooth microfoam. It has a lid for storage and traveling, and it’s rechargeable. (Its USB cord is included, too.) While this wasn’t an official test, the Golde did a good job mixing powders like matcha into liquid. The whisk can be removed from the handle and is dishwasher-safe.
What we didn’t like: Since it’s a handheld model, you’ll have to heat milk first if making hot foam. It’s not as powerful as a countertop frother.
What we liked: The Zulay is easy to use—just press a button and you're frothing. It's well-made and comfortable, and we liked the included stand. It weighs a touch less than the Golde and has a longer wand. It's a no-frills model that just works well and costs around $10.
What we didn't like: If you want two or three-tiered whisks, you'll need to pay for an upgraded model; the heads aren't interchangeable. There's only one speed.
Most of our top picks are countertop electric milk frothers. With these, you add milk (the pitchers usually have minimum and maximum lines on them), select your temperature and/or froth setting, and press the power button. The frother will automatically stop once frothing is completed. For handheld milk frothers, you add the milk to a separate pitcher/glass, insert the whisk end into the milk, and then turn on the frother. You will want to move the frother up and down and/or tilt it side to side for best results.
You can froth any non-dairy milk—including oat milk—with a milk frother. Some alternative milk might not froth well or take longer to froth. You can also seek out barista blends of non-dairy milk, which tend to be fattier and more stable when frothed. The Breville Milk Cafe is the best milk frother we tested for plant-based/alternative milk, like oat or almond milk. Because it had multiple whisk attachments and precise temperature control, we found we could make small adjustments when frothing non-dairy milk to achieve the best results.
If you like to make lattes, cappuccinos, cold foam, match, or even hot chocolate at home, a milk frother can be worth it.
actuator valve industrial valve Countertop milk frothers can heat up milk, but handheld ones can’t (and neither can ones shaped like a French press). If you want to froth hot milk with a handheld milk frother, you’ll need to heat it up first.