Almond milk is a popular dairy alternative for vegans and non-vegans alike. While there’s no shortage of options available on store shelves, it’s pretty simple to make your own. This cuts down on the environmental waste of carton after carton, lets you choose exactly what ingredients go into your milk, and saves money (at least in the long run).
You could use a blender and a nut milk bag for homemade almond milk, but there are easier ways. These specialized machines handle the blending and the filtering (and sometimes the cooking) required for tasty homemade almond milk, not to mention all sorts of other plant-based dairy alternatives.
Best Overall
Nutr Nut Milk Maker
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- Good texture
- Works with many different ingredients
- Multiple heat and speed settings
- Small capacity
- Slow, especially when heating
- Overheats after a few batches in a row
Two separate rounds of testing have both convinced us that the small-but-mighty Nutr is the best almond milk maker out there. It yielded consistent textures with almonds, cashews, and oats, though we got better, smoother, and creamier results by running each milk through the machine a second time. That takes a few extra minutes but we’d recommend it highly.
The Nutr has self-heating capabilities, which can give you fresh, warm almond milk for your coffee and is also perfect for soy, rice, or other plant-based milks whose ingredients have to be cooked. Its various modes run the blending blades and heating element at different levels and for different amounts of time, giving you the ability to make smoothies, milkshakes, soups, coffee drinks, and more—you can also just use it to boil water. The hot settings take a comparatively long time (20 minutes for soy or rice milk) but make the machine a real multitasker.
Unfortunately, the Nutr might not be the right choice for a large family that drinks multiple glasses of milk a day. Its capacity is just a cup and a half at a time, and it overheated and shut down when we ran multiple cycles in a row during testing. It came back to life and worked just fine after cooling down, but it’s not the best idea to let any appliance overheat on a regular basis.
We tested the sleek matte black model with rose-gold accents, which costs 20 bucks more than the plainer white but works exactly the same. Either way, the Nutr is pretty much middle-of-the-road for price compared to similar machines.
Capacity: 11.8 ounces | Dimensions: 4.3 x 4.3 x 8.2 inches | Self-Heating: Yes | Power: 1,440 watts | Empty Weight: 3 pounds
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Best Large-Capacity
Almond Cow Plant-Based Milk Maker
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- Large capacity
- Fast
- Simple to use
- Not self-heating
- Requires extra straining for best texture
The Almond Cow is sleek, versatile, and easy to use. You put base ingredients (any nut, seed, or grain works) in the filter basket and water in the kettle, then screw everything together. Press the single button, and in about a minute, you’ll get up to 6 cups of milk. This was the second-largest-capacity and the fastest machine in our testing, which is an impressive achievement.
The included filter does an okay job, but the truth is you’ll probably want an additional filtering step with the Almond Cow—our test batches of almond and cashew milks came out a bit gritty but were greatly improved by a pass through a nut milk bag. It’s also not self-heating; you can start with hot water in the kettle, but the instructions recommend pre-cooking for rice or soybeans. When we used hot water as the base for oat milk, we got a pretty slimy milk that didn’t get much better after filtration.
However, the Almond Cow website features an array of recipes customized to the machine that help take advantage of its particular design. The CocoCash milk—so popular that Almond Cow trademarked the name—is seriously delicious, a creamy and complex mix of coconut and cashew. The recipes also include waste-saving ways to use the leftover pulp, which range from gluten-free almond cookies to vegan ricotta cheese.
Cleaning the Almond Cow is fairly easy, as you can rinse most parts in the sink, and run the machine with soap and water for a deeper clean. You just have to be very careful with the top part, which contains both the blades and the electric motor; it can’t be immersed in liquid.
This is an expensive machine, especially for one that doesn’t have its own heating element. With that said, it could be a good investment for a family who goes through gallons and gallons of store-bought almond milk. (And if you’re making even higher volumes, say for a coffee shop, restaurant, or hippie commune, you can consider the Almond Cow Pro. It’s much pricier but yields 2 full gallons at a time.)
Capacity: 48 ounces | Dimensions: 8 x 7 x 12.1 inches | Self-Heating: No | Empty Weight: 6.4 pounds
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Best Multi-Ingredient
ChefWave Milkmade Milk Maker
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- Smooth texture
- Multiple settings
- Delayed start and self-clean functions
- Expensive
- Small capacity
Cleaning all the little bits out of all the screens, filters, and blades is generally the most aggravating part of making your own almond milk. The Milkmade does that for you, literally: When a batch of milk is done, it automatically runs an auto-clean cycle that uses a separate water reservoir to wash out all the parts. (You will still have to hand-wash all the parts once in a while, but it’s an impressively effective feature.)
This machine is extremely easy to use, thanks to a touchscreen control with settings for almond, cashew, macadamia, coconut, oat, and soy. Each uses a slightly different pattern of heating and blending for optimal texture, and we got great results without any extra straining required. The recommended ratio of 1 tablespoon of almonds to 20 ounces of water made a rather thin milk, but you’re free to adjust and experiment to get your ideal results.
Another great feature is the Milkmade’s delayed start option. You can load up ingredients and water and set it to wait for hours before it starts the milk-making process. This lets you wake up to a pitcher of fresh milk for your morning coffee, but it also automates the pre-soaking process to help with the texture of the finished milk.
This is definitely a fairly expensive machine, but its functionality and ease of use could make it worthwhile. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty small, with a maximum batch size of two and a half cups. If you love homemade almond milk but don’t go through it all that quickly, the Milkmade could be your perfect choice.
Capacity: 20 ounces | Dimensions: 13.6 x 6.5 x 12.8 inches | Self-Heating: Yes | Power: 1,000 watts | Empty Weight: 11.7 pounds
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Best Budget
Tribest Soyabella Automatic Nut & Seed Milk Maker
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- Inexpensive
- Self-heating
- Multifunctional
- Large capacity
- Long and inconsistent heating times
- Requires extra straining for best texture
Tribest’s inexpensive Soyabella boasts an impressive price for all the different things it can do. Besides plant-based milks both hot and cold, it can also grind coffee, grains, or spices; cook hot cereal; heat and puree soups; and more. You choose the automatic hot or cold setting, and the accessory you attach to the blade—grinding cup, fine screen, or coarse screen—determines the final results.
In testing, the Soyabella did best with almonds and cashews on the unheated “raw” setting. Both came out somewhat gritty with the coarse filter, while the fine filter quickly became too clogged to extract any liquid. But if you just use the coarse filter, the texture is an issue a nut milk bag or finer filter can help deal with. The major problem was the Soyabella’s erratic processing times. The machine has no timer screen, so you have to wait until its green light blinks to indicate the cycle is complete. That took one minute for one batch of almond milk but nearly half an hour for another. The hot setting was even worse, taking an hour and 20 minutes for a test batch of oat milk, which came out undrinkably thick.
All in all, this is an almond milk maker that’s decent at making almond milk, and it’s decent to not-so-great at making all sorts of other options. For its low price, we say that makes it a pretty good value.
Capacity: 44 ounces | Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.3 x 10.5 inches | Self-Heating: no | Power: 200 watts | Empty Weight: 3.7 pounds
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Best Splurge
NutraMilk Nut Processor
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- Dishwasher-safe
- Powerful and heavy-duty
- Multifunctional
- Bulky
- Two separate steps to make milk
The NutraMilk is actually a nut butter maker as much as it is a nut milk maker. The machine works in two steps, first pulverizing nuts into smooth and creamy butter, then blending and filtering with added water to get the final milk. The heavy-duty machine is powerful and high-capacity, able to turn 5 cups of nuts into 3 cups of butter, or to make 2 liters (more than half a gallon!) of milk per batch.
The machine works “automatically” in that it blends nuts into butter and then butter into milk on timed settings, but you have to stop it and add water in between. It’s only a small annoyance but it’s a little disappointing that something this expensive isn’t truly a set-it-and-forget-it appliance. (We also don’t love that it doesn’t have a built-in heating element.)
We did, however, get the smoothest milk results of all our testing from the NutraMilk. Its cashew and oat milks were both nice and smooth, with very little grit in the former and slime in the latter. The convenient spigot dispenser on the front of the pitcher is a nice feature to avoid mess, too. With almonds, the milk ended up a little more gritty. It was some of the best results in our testing, but it could still use a post-blending pass through a nut milk bag.
The NutraMilk is the only dishwasher-safe machine on this list, a big bonus if you’re going to use it often (and especially if you’re using it to make thick and sticky butters). It’s quite heavy and bulky, essentially a large food processor, and it’s going to take up a good bit of room on your countertop—it’s tall enough that you’ll probably have to pull it out from under the cabinet to use it, too. It does a great job, but that price is an awfully hard pill to swallow unless you’re a serious homemade-almond-milk devotee.
Capacity: 67.6 ounces | Dimensions: 21.1 x 18.7 x 11.4 inches | Self-Heating: no | Power: 320 watts | Empty Weight: 26 pounds
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Final Verdict
After extensive testing, our top pick for an automatic almond milk maker is the Nutr Machine, which is simple and efficient but fairly small. To make bigger batches, the speedy Almond Cow Plant-Based Milk Maker can put out 6 cups in a single minute (and it works with more than just almonds).
How We Tested Almond Milk Makers
We sent almond milk makers to several of our experienced at-home testers so they could try them out in their own kitchens. We asked them to note if any instructions were clear and if the machine is easy to use, as well as time how long it takes to make a provided recipe, measure how much milk the machine made, and if applicable, take the temperature of the milk to see how hot it gets. Of course, we also had our testers taste the milk and describe the flavor, texture, and consistency. After they made several different types of milk in the machines and cleaned them, we asked our testers about the value of the almond milk maker and if they would recommend it.
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What to Look for in an Almond Milk Maker
Features
To make almond milk, you have to grind up almonds in water, and then filter out the solid bits. Those two functions are kind of the bare minimum for an almond milk maker, and different models have different shapes and styles of blades, filters, and screens to do this to varying levels of effectiveness. Almond milk makers can also be used with other types of nuts or grains, and many machines have special settings or alternate parts for different base ingredients.
Some machines have an internal heating element, which really expands what they can do. While homemade almond milk doesn’t need heating, ingredients including rice and soybeans have to be cooked, which would be a separate step without a self-heating milk maker. Other helpful features you’ll find in some models but not others include a timer to pre-soak ingredients before blending; a self-clean setting to unclog the filters and screens; and a cup that lets the blades act as a coffee grinder.
Capacity
The amount of almond milk you can get out of a machine mostly depends on how much water you can fit into it. A larger-capacity model needs a higher-power motor, so it’s going to be more expensive as well as larger in physical size compared to one that doesn’t make as much milk at a time. If you don’t have a large household that drinks a lot of milk, you probably won’t need an extra-large machine. Keep in mind that homemade almond milk will only stay good in the fridge for a few days, so you’ll never need a batch larger than what you’d use in a week or so.
Functionality
Almost any almond milk maker can make plant-based milk from other ingredients, but some are able to create non-milk foods of many kinds. By running blending and heating settings separately, models like this can make pureed soups, smoothies, and fruit juices in addition to milk. By just bringing water to the boil quickly, a self-heating milk maker can also act as an electric kettle.
FAQs
What kind of almonds do you use to make almond milk?
You should use unsalted, raw, whole almonds to make almond milk. Nobody wants salty milk, and roasted almonds will give the milk a toasty flavor that’s less useful as an all-purpose dairy substitute. Slivered or chopped almonds will work fine, but from a cost perspective, it makes the most sense to use cheaper-in-bulk whole ones.
Should almonds be pre-soaked before making almond milk?
You don’t have to soak almonds before making milk, but if you do they’ll end up softer and easier to blend more thoroughly. The resulting milk will have a smoother and richer texture, with less grit. Some almond milk makers have a pre-soaking timer, but if yours doesn’t you can simply place your almonds in a bowl, fill with water to cover, and let stand for 8 to 12 hours before loading up the milk maker.
How long does homemade almond milk last?
As with any dairy or plant-based milk, homemade almond milk should always be stored in the refrigerator. A batch should stay good for three to five days. (Note that homemade almond milk may separate while sitting in the fridge; this does not mean it’s gone bad, and you can just shake it up before using.) Store-bought almond milk will last for several weeks longer than homemade; it’s pasteurized before packaging, and may also contain artificial preservatives.
Can you add other ingredients to almond milk?
Absolutely! Having an almond milk maker gives you the freedom to experiment however you want. One very simple option is to add a flavoring like vanilla extract, cinnamon, or cocoa powder to the finished milk. You can also combine almonds with other ingredients before blending to create a custom mix. Coconut, for example, adds fatty richness, while soybeans are higher in protein than other plant-milk bases. Some recipes include unexpected ingredients, as well. Many homemade almond milks add some date to the mix, which helps thicken the milk but also contributes a little umami in addition to sweetness.
