Best Nut Milk Makers, Tested and Reviewed

Milk alternatives are now well-established parts of the liquid landscape—and many nondairy milk enthusiasts are on the hunt for the best nut milk makers so they can whip up their own at home. Sure, it’s easy enough to find these vegan milks at most grocery stores, with classics like almond milk, oat milk, coconut milk, alongside more eccentric newcomers like pistachio milk, quinoa milk, and even pea milk crowding around the dairy aisle—but homemade nut milk is free of additives and preservatives, and making your own saves money.

With that in mind, we put leading nut milk makers to the test—and the Chefwave Milkmade clearly came out on top. Read on to discover why the Chefwave Milkmade is our winner, and scroll further down for more information about how we tested and which nut milk makers didn’t measure up.

Specs

• Dimensions: 15.6" x 9.8" x 18.5"
• Weight: 14.6 lbs
• Color: White or silver/black
• Warranty: 1 year
• Brew capacity: 10 or 20 ounces
• Presets: Almond milk, oat milk, soy milk, cashew milk, macadamia milk, and coconut milk
• Dishwasher safe: No

The Chefwave Milkmade, as it is marketed in the US, appears to be a rebranded version of the Joyoung DJ10U-K1 soy milk maker. Joyoung is a company well-regarded for its higher end home soy milk machines in China, and this version, which has been repurposed for making various dairy-free milks, came in head and shoulders above its competition both in ease of use and the quantity of ingredients it requires.

The Milkmade had the most preset options out of any of the machines tested, with options for soy, almond, cashew, macadamia, coconut, and oat, and it provided a choice between 10 and 20 ounces per machine cycle. Each cycle took 10 minutes or less to complete, after which the automatic self-clean function kicked in—that’s right, it literally cleans itself.

That was a big reason why this machine was so nice; the actual handiwork involved is about as minimal as it gets. All I had to do was fill the removable reservoir tank in the back with water (similar to a standard coffee maker), and insert the ingredients in the blending and steaming compartment on the top of the machine. After the machine finished making milk and the cleaning cycle ended, I could just dump out the wastewater container located behind the pitcher into the sink. That’s it.

Does Almond Milk Go Bad?

The biggest value of the Milkmade is actually in how efficient it is at using ingredients compared to most other nut milk–making methods out there. Typically I could get away with using 1 Tbsp. of nuts per 20 oz. of water, depending how thick you want your milk to be. That’s a ratio of 1 Tbsp. per 2½ cups of water. To make a comparison, the Soybella and the Almond Cow (both covered below) required ½ cup per 2½ cups of water or eight times the amount of nuts. This is because these other machines produce a lot of “pulp,” which isn’t actually pulp, it’s just unused nuts that the blender apparatus couldn’t pulverize. The Milkmade produces no pulp, using every bit of nut that goes into it.

And despite that, the Milkmade consistently produced smooth and creamy milk, batch after batch, and without the need for soaking most ingredients in advance. Occasionally you might encounter some foam you’ll want to skim off, or a tiny bit of grit, but those things are easily remedied with a quick strain through a mesh strainer and by rinsing the nuts in water before putting them in the machine. These are small grievances compared to the burden of repurposing pulverized nut “pulp.” Most nuts don’t need to be presoaked, but if you attempt rice milk, like I did once for some horchata, or like making oat milk out of whole unprocessed oats, soaking is a good idea.

The one drawback for some people might be that the machine has no room temperature option. Fresh out of the machine, the milk comes out at around 180℉. To get around this, I found that it was easy to make a more concentrated batch of milk by doubling the amount of ingredients, and then diluting it to your desired consistency with cold water. This means that you might not be able to make a batch of nut milk for your bowl of cold cereal that same morning, but the machine makes it easy enough to make a quick batch before bed.

All in all, the Chefwave Milkmade was the only machine that made making nut milk easy and cost-saving as well.

We tested each machine by making a batch of cashew milk, almond milk, and oat milk, following the manufacturer’s instructions regarding proper water-to-nut or water-to-oat ratios. We then compared the resulting plant-based milks from each machine and measured the amount of pulp left over. Afterward, we cleaned each machine and noted the effort involved in doing so.

For this test, we chose to focus on machines that could perform the nut milk–making process in its entirety. We excluded any gadgets that only handled one step of the job and relied on food processors, your Vitamix, or nut milk bags in order to get complete homemade nut milk.

First and foremost, is the quality of the milk good? Is it smooth and well emulsified? Are there any gritty bits or off flavors?

One of the biggest value adds a nut milker can bring to your home is the potential savings making your own nut milk might bring versus buying it from the store. This is only worthwhile if you aren’t spending tons and tons of money on raw nuts. We looked at how efficient each machine was based on how much milk it produced per volume of the nuts required. The fewer nuts needed, the better. Plant-based milk makers that produce a lot of wasted nut material in the form of “pulp” are potentially just as expensive as buying quarts of nut milk at the store.

The easier an appliance is to clean, the more likely we are to use it on a regular basis. With a nut milk maker—something meant to provide a regular household grocery staple like milk—easy cleanup is paramount.

The Almond Cow is a versatile, stainless steel machine that produces smooth and creamy milk in 15 seconds without the need for heat (it works by blending the nuts and straining the liquid). However, the Almond Cow produces a lot of “pulp,” a.k.a. wasted nuts, which isn’t ideal when you consider the cost of nuts. The company recommends that you save the pulp for topping oatmeal or cereal, which is a good idea, but we would rather have been able to use it to make more milk. Also, washing all the parts and components and setting them out to dry was a bit of a hassle, especially compared to the self-cleaning Chefwave. All in all, it’s a high-quality machine, but the fact that it requires eight times the nuts for the same amount of milk as my top pick is just too hard to get around.

The Soyabella is similar to the Almond Cow; the only difference is that it has an additional heat setting. However, if you use that heat setting, the machine takes up to 20 minutes to get to temperature, which was the longest out of the three models that used heat. Beyond that, the two machines, and their performances, were pretty much the same.

The Nutr Machine has a compact design that will take up little counter space, but it’s basically just a combination blender and hot water heater. We had an issue with the button interface, which did not seem to work properly. The multifunction start button did not allow us to cancel a cycle or use an advertised “delay” function. Cleaning was also a little precarious as the sensitive electrical components are close to areas you need to rinse out.

Now that you know more about the machines, let’s tackle some of the most common questions about making nut milk at home.

Yes. Nut milk makers are designed to process a variety of nuts, including almonds, cashews, and hazelnuts. These are common nuts that dominate the nut milk landscape, but you can use whatever you like. Creamy macadamia milk anyone?

If you’re looking for a nut milk that tastes most like cow milk, reach for almonds. Almonds give your liquid a slight sweet, mild flavor and a smooth consistency that tastes the most similar to dairy milk. Cashews and macadamias also produce a creamy, mild drink and probably come next.

The good here is that you can avoid additives and preservatives that show up in a lot of store-bought nut milk ("barista" nut milks in particular have ingredients added to help them foam up. It's also another way to avoid single use plastics or cartons, which are part of even the greener nut milk companies.

As for cons? Considering how easy the Milkmade is to use, the biggest downside is that homemade nut milk has a shorter shelf life than store-bought stuff (you can thank the preservatives for that).