Slippery Souls: Making Good Foam for Flat White

Can’t Get Your Latte Right? It’s Not You. It’s the Milk. (But These Tips Will Help.)

Published August 5, 2026

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Maki Yazawa/NYT Wirecutter

By Maki Yazawa

Maki Yazawa uses her professional culinary experience to rigorously test the tools and techniques that help make cooking easier and more fun.

The pinnacle of cappuccino excellence, as any master Italian barista will tell you, is microfoam that’s so dense and glossy it resembles wet paint. When microfoam is made just right, every sip is pure, unctuous velvet — a quiet luxury that tastes even sweeter when you aren’t paying premium-coffee-shop prices for it. But if there’s one small misstep, you’ll end up with a pathetic puddle of milky scum swimming in a shot of espresso.

If you’re making coffee at home, you don’t need fancy equipment to whip milk into a thick, velvety foam. A simple handheld frother will work nicely. And while temperature and technique both play important roles, it’s really the type of milk you choose that determines its frothability.

Different milks contain varying amounts of protein and fat. They’re like building blocks, with proteins holding everything together and fat globules providing some cushion. That’s why skim, low-fat, whole, and plant-based milks all behave so differently when they’re frothed, especially in a range of temperatures. (In fact, this is the reason we test milk frothers with three different types of milk — whole, almond, and oat — to make sure our frother picks work with all of them.)

But the best milk for frothing ultimately depends on what you’re making. So we turned our test kitchen into a makeshift café, and we frothed nine kinds of milk — hot and cold, dairy and nondairy — using two different frothing tools to determine the most reliable methods for making decadent foam. Here’s what we discovered.

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Cow’s milk reigns supreme for frothing

If you’re a slow sipper who enjoys a hot cappuccino with plenty of glossy microfoam, or you delight in an iced latte with a thick head of rich, creamy cold foam, cow’s milk is your best bet.

During testing, I frothed three types of cow’s milk with varying amounts of milk fat — 365 Nonfat Milk (less than 0.5%), 365 Lowfat Milk (1%), and Organic Valley Whole Milk (3.25%). I frothed each milk with our two top-pick milk frothers: the Instant MagicFroth 9-in-1 (a pitcher-style frother) and the MatchaBar Electric Matcha Whisk (a handheld electric frother).

Top pick

Top pick,

The best pitcher-style milk frother

Instant MagicFroth 9-in-1

This little machine can heat and froth both dairy and nondairy milk. It makes dense foam (even with cold milk) and can melt chocolate for hot cocoa, too.

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Top pick,

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MatchaBar Electric Matcha Whisk

This one won’t heat your milk, but it’s the most powerful handheld frother we tested. And it quickly whips up a thick foam with both dairy and nondairy milk.

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The nonfat milk (left) produced the most height, the low-fat milk (middle) fell quickly, and the whole milk (right) produced the creamiest foam. Maki Yazawa/NYT Wirecutter

Whole milk and nonfat milk (aka skim milk) both produced the most impressive foams, whether they were hot or cold and regardless of the tool I used. Yet the whole milk had a slight edge. Due to its higher fat content, the whole milk was more creamy and plush than the skim milk. And the whole milk left a luscious mouthfeel that rivaled what a skilled coffee expert would concoct in a professional setting. My colleague Ana Paola Wong, a former barista, called it “the gold standard” of milk frothing and said it was the perfect texture for producing latte art, which she effortlessly demonstrated.

Erica Solano/NYT Wirecutter

The skim milk produced an insane amount of height, especially when it was cold. It was airier than the whole milk, and it popped more aggressively, like suds in a bubble bath. A dollop of this super-light, fluffy foam would pair well with a macchiato or an iced latte.

Low-fat milk performed similarly to skim milk when it was frothed cold. But I wouldn’t recommend heating it because it quickly separated and turned watery within seconds.

There are a few caveats to frothing milk

It’s important to froth cow’s milk at the appropriate temperature. Cow’s milk contains two key proteins — casein and whey — with well-organized structures that can expertly trap air bubbles and suspend milk fat for rich, creamy results. But the wrong temperature can disrupt the fine balance.

“Whole milk will foam when it’s cold, when the fat’s in the solid state. It’ll [also] foam when it’s warm, when it’s in the liquid state,” Grace Lewis, an assistant professor of food science at Penn State University, said in a video interview. (She’s also a self-proclaimed “milk froth nerd.”)

“But then there’s an in-between state, where those solid fat particles are kind of pokey, and they can fracture that air cell,” Lewis explained. And that’s why you can’t foam milk when it’s at room temperature, she said.

For best results, always froth milk at or above 40 °C (104 °F) or below 20 °C (68 ºF), but not below freezing. Milk won’t froth at room temperature, as shown above. Maki Yazawa/NYT Wirecutter

Frothing milk at or above 40 °C (104 °F) or below 20 °C (68 ºF) — but not below freezing — is the sweet spot. You can also froth milk at higher temperatures, which can help with the stability of the foam, Lewis said. At these extreme temperatures, however, the foam’s flavor and texture will likely begin to change.

The long and the short of it: You should always warm milk evenly to prevent scalding it, which can leave a “cooked note” (as Lewis describes it) in your latte. The goal is to achieve a consistent temperature throughout the milk, so when you’re heating it, you should occasionally stop and stir it to distribute the heat.

The Instant MagicFroth 9-in-1 has a self-powered whisk and automatic temperature presets (cool, warm, and hot), so you don’t have to worry about whisking enough or staying within the appropriate heat range. (The warm setting is roughly 140 °F, and the hot setting is about 168 °F.) But if you’re warming milk in the microwave or in a pot to foam with a handheld frother, you should use an instant-read thermometer — like our top pick, the Lavatools Javelin Pro Duo — to ensure the temperature is right.

Grace Lewis recommends tilting the cup and holding the frother at an angle to incorporate air as efficiently as possible. Then she slowly moves the whisk up and down to ensure air is being sucked in from the surface and distributed throughout. Grace Lewis/NYT Wirecutter

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Nondairy milk doesn’t foam well

If you haven’t mastered frothing nondairy milk, it’s not you. It’s the milk. “In plant-based systems, we don’t have the same proteins [as cow’s milk], we have different ones, and typically they’re less capable of forming a foam,” Lewis explained.

Getting the foam to last was the biggest issue when I frothed these plant-based milks: Oatly Original Oatmilk and two types of almond milk with varying protein levels (Almond Breeze Original, with 1 gram of protein, and Califia Organic Almondmilk, with 2 grams).

All three plant milks produced a considerable amount of foam when they were hot or cold. But the bubbles weren’t uniform, and the results weren’t nearly as creamy as the whole milk’s results. The air pockets also quickly dissipated, leaving a light, airy texture similar to that of a foam fluoride rinse at a dentist’s office. Meanwhile, when I frothed Almond Breeze cold using a handheld frother, it produced shockingly large surface bubbles — akin to those on a hyperactive sourdough starter.

Large bubbles rose to the surface after I frothed the cold Almond Breeze milk. Maki Yazawa/NYT Wirecutter

If you encounter large bubbles, swirling and tapping foam (like baristas do) can even out the texture. “This removes any of those bubbles that haven’t fully foamed or been incorporated into that micro-bubble structure,” Lewis said. When I tried to tap the inordinately massive bubbles out of the Almond Breeze sample, though, it didn’t help much.

Overall, of the three milks, the Califia Organic Almondmilk made the most palatable foam when it was hot and I used the handheld frother. Meanwhile, Oatly Oatmilk foamed the best when it was cold and I was using the Instant MagicFroth 9-in-1.

Barista-style milk is much better for frothing

Barista-style versions of plant-based milk are designed specifically for foaming, and they are much better at achieving homogeneous, creamy results. “Oftentimes, these formulations are also going to include what we call stabilizers or emulsifiers, so something like a gellan gum, carrageenan, or whatever the processors decide to add in there,” Lewis said. These stabilizers help mimic the texture of whole milk, so barista-style milk is much better at producing a thicker, creamier foam.

The Oatley Barista Edition Oatmilk samples (the two cups on the left) produced a denser, creamier foam than the regular oat-milk samples (the two cups on the right). Even after sitting a few minutes, the Oatley milk’s foam maintained its height better. (In the photo above, “HH” represents the handheld frother, and “I” represents the Instant MagicFrother.) Maki Yazawa/NYT Wirecutter

Of the three barista-style milks I tested, the Oatly Barista Edition Oatmilk was the best. It contains dipotassium phosphate, instead of other, more commonly used gum stabilizers. And it produced the most impressive, dollop-y, spoonable-yet-fluid texture and luscious mouthfeel.

Frothing it hot in the Instant MagicFrother yielded the glossiest, most uniform foam. Meanwhile, when it was whipped cold with the handheld frother, it nearly tripled in volume. But when I used the handheld frother to froth the oatmilk hot, I had to tap out the larger bubbles that rose to the surface to achieve a more uniform texture.

The Instant MagicFrother frothed the Califia Almond Barista Blend with greater ease than the handheld frother. Meanwhile, no tool was able to salvage the Táche Barista Pistachio Milk. Maki Yazawa/NYT Wirecutter

Califia Almond Barista Blend frothed noticeably better than its non-barista counterpart, but it had a slightly less creamy quality than the barista oat milk. Still, it would be adequate for homemade cappuccinos or cold-foam-topped iced lattes. And I wouldn’t bother trying to froth the Táche Barista Pistachio Milk, which produced large air pockets and had an off-putting, stale, nutty aftertaste.

Maki Yazawa and Erica Solano/NYT Wirecutter

Speaking of baristas, if you want to make a large batch of Starbucks-style cold foam, and you own a Vitamix blender, you may want to consider investing in an Aer Disc Container. It’s what the pros at the Seattle-based chain use to make their specialty cold foams, Adam Wilson, a senior manager of culinary education at Vitamix, said in a video interview. The Aer Disc comes with a hefty ($170) price tag, but since a dollop of Protein Cold Foam (the latest trendy concoction at Starbucks) is $2, it might just be worth it.

Gabriella DePinho contributed reporting. This article was edited by Annemarie Conte and Maxine Builder.

Further reading

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Meet your guide

Maki Yazawa

I cover all things kitchen-related, from how to correctly dispose of used cooking oil to how to decide whether the latest trendy cooking gadget is worth your time, money, and counter space. My goal is to share the best tools and techniques to help new cooks build confidence in the kitchen and to help seasoned cooks refine their skills.

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Sep. 16

For nondairy milk, the Pacific barista series (blenders) original soy milk at room temperature is my standard bearer. For years I bought it by the case and had it shipped. It's harder to find, though, and I can't have it shipped to me where I live now, so the Oatly barista is a solid choice. Original or Full Fat refrigerated Oatly (non-barista style) is also a decent choice.

1 reader marked as helpful

Sep. 16

For nondairy milk, the Pacific barista series (blenders) original soy milk at room temperature is my standard bearer. For years I bought it buy the case and had it shipped. It's harder to find, though, and I can't have it shipped to me where I live now, so the Oatly barista is a solid choice. Original or Full Fat refrigerated Oatly (non-barista style) is also a decent choice.

Mark as helpful

Metaphor

Sep. 15

I moved to Hawai'i recently and discovered that the hot humid climate here plays havoc with milk frothing. On the mainland I used whole milk from a dairy cow using a Nespresso Aeroccino. Hot or cold it worked great. Since moving to Hawai'i I have found that the cold milk I froth for iced lattes falls apart quickly. No doubt it's the warm humid air. Or maybe it's just me. Obviously there are coffee shops in Hawai'i. Maybe I should ask a local barista for tips. In any case, I have had better luck with milk shipped over from the mainland than with milk from local Hawai'i dairies.

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Steve S

Sep. 15

I have found that frothworthyness varies with the season, better in the winter. Could it be the diet, hay in the winter and grass in the summer?

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David

Sep. 13

I have a Breville espresso machine. I use half and half rather milk, froth it to 170F and it’s perfect. I find milk creates too much froth.

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Kevin

Sep. 12

We had a friend who is lactose intolerant visit. We used lactose free 2% milk to make cappuccino and found the form to be much thicker than 2% skim milk,

Does anyone know the science behind this?

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Jean-François Laferté

Sep. 12

Hi,

Funny you sharing tricks for better frothing:I tried to make a pumpkin spicy kind of coffee yesterday and my experience went well until I frothed my 3,25% milk with hope that it will make foam as well as my espresso machine:it collapses in seconds!I tried a second time and it did the same thing..Milk was out of the fridge,I used my inox cup I take with my espresso machine to froth the milk and nothing compares to the foam with my espresso machine..Any clue please!

Jean-François Laferté

Terrebonne,Québec

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Mar

Sep. 11

have a cafe au lait, steaming the milk adds nothing but tasteless air, and more gadgets to clean. Nespresso lungo and milk heated in the microwave weekdays, Moka pot and kobenstyle butter warmer on the weekends

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Stan Wasserman

Sep. 09

Try YOUHoo for latte. Shake carton then pour over expresso

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Morty

Aug. 24

When I read at the beginning that the 365 Nonfat Milk contained LESS THAN 0% milk fat, I knew I was reading a real scholarly work! Research conducted by communications majors ;) L.O.L.

1 reader marked as helpful

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Bookish

Sep. 12

@Morty Sorry to zang your zing, but it says "less than 0.5%".

1 reader marked as helpful

JPx

Aug. 16

Whole milk, heated in a glass for 30 seconds in the microwave works well, but of course depends on how powerful is your microwave and how much milk you use. A glass with straight sides and a hand held rechargeable frother works well. A flared glass tends to spatter the milk more. At least for me.

1 reader marked as helpful

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John H

Aug. 26

@JPx that's what I do and it works the same for skim milk. 1 and 2% don't work as well that way.

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Aug. 16

Hmmm, Oatly. First thing they did when they raised billions on the markets? They sued Oaty, a small, local family business in the UK that had been making oatmilk for years & years. Thankfully the judge threw it out (you cant trademark “oat”). I havent touched an Oatly since and suggest you don’t either if this is the way they behave. There are plenty of other brands out there.

4 readers marked as helpful

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Erik Seeberg

Sep. 12

@J wow, didn’t know this and it’s disappointing ,since Oatly’s product is arguably the best (I’ve been sampling them all for years). That being said, what commercial brand of anything hasn’t behaved predatorily?

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Lisa

Aug. 15

I froth my coffee creamer (lately using Starbucks products, especially the sugar free caramel or the brown sugar espresso), which makes so much foam I have to divide it and add the 2nd layer as the foam settles. Delicious!

I have a Mr. Coffee Hot/Cold frap machine, and it makes a decent brew. I prefer Starbucks dark beans, (Christmas blend is the best), Italian, Sumatra, Espresso or even 1812 will do, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Holiday coffee, or any Peet's dark brew. Everyone has their favorites; those are mine.

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Lisa

Aug. 13

Soy milk froths well. Sorry to see it wasn't tested with the plant-based milks.

6 readers marked as helpful

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Jon J

Aug. 17

@Lisa depends which brand, though. We buy Stop & Shop brand, mainly because it’s $2.99 a half gallon, compared to $5.99 for Silk, which is the only other brand I’ll buy. Neither foam well nowadays. I think they changed their recipe within the last 3 years. We use a Nespresso foaming device. It’s worked well for almost ten years. Regular milk foams up wonderfully. Soy, not so much.

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Craig

Aug. 05

This is cheating, but I put a tiny (~1/4 teaspoon) of Pre-Hydrated Xanthan Gum (PreHy) in the milk before steaming/frothing. I keep PreHy in my fridge for tons of other uses (like sauces & salad dressings), but the rich mouthfeel it can generate with just 2% milk is pretty remarkable, and it is essentially fool-proof.

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LMc

Aug. 07

OK, call me crazy, but I just heat my 2% milk in a microwave (90 seconds will make a half cup hot but not cooked) and call it a day. I can't taste/feel the difference and it's a heckofa lot easier.

1 reader marked as helpful

mike

Aug. 12

i wasn't able to ever get any foam using my SIMPLETASTE milk frother and any nondairy mile- Oatley, Califia - all failed. then i tried Planet Oat and it was awesome. finally some foam instead of hot milk!

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Sophia

Aug. 12

Oatly Extra Creamy produces a nice microfoam. (I use a Dreo frother.)

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Catherine L.

Aug. 10

OCF In Philadelphia gets their lattes more than right! Heavenly…

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Susan

Aug. 09

Hi Maki,

I use another way to froth milk for my at home latte. Pour about 1/2 a cup of whole milk into a coffee press. Using the “plunger,“ go up and down quickly about 30 times to aerate the milk. Pour that milk into a coffee cup and microwave for 30-40 seconds. How long depends on the size of your cup.

Most times, the now hot frothed milk is like a cloud. So yummy even though I pair it with a K-cup flavored coffee and not espresso. Try it…. I love it!

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Catherineap

Aug. 11

@Susan I do the same thing and it works great. I don’t have a microwave so I heat the milk on the stove before I froth it.

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TGM

Aug. 09

Also impacting the frothing level is weather the cows experienced prior to being milked. When it is hot out for multiple days, the froth from their milk will settle more quickly into a few bubbles around the edge of the cup. When the cows are pleasantly comfortable the milk will maintain a dense and velvety loft.

After hot days you may be questioning the barista’s attention, but it is in fact the recent weather.

1 reader marked as helpful

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Erik Seeberg

Sep. 12

@TGM Somehow I doubt there’s any way to determine where one’s store bought milk comes from, and therefore what weather its cows experienced. And there’s no way the normal processes of pasteurization and homogenization don’t minimize the phenomenon you’re alleging.

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Cece

Aug. 09

Oh, that was fabulous - I love geeking out on these sorts of topics!

2 readers marked as helpful

SPH

Aug. 08

I had hopes this article would address a different but closely aligned subject: cow's milk tasting notes. If you want to enjoy cow's milk from the grocery store, do not learn about cow's milk tasting notes.

1 reader marked as helpful

Donn

Aug. 08

We bought a Breville Barista Impress espresso machine in May. The milk foamer worked great with the non-fat milk we usually buy. One week, that milk wasn't available, and we bought another brand. It did not foam at all. Turns out the milk we usually buy is pasteurized at low heat for a longer time. The other milk is pasteurized at high heat for a short time. It apparently makes a difference, at least with our machine.

5 readers marked as helpful

Laurel

Aug. 08

I'd like to know how these milks do with a steam frother since steam introduces a bit of water into the milk. My espresso machine is a small one and it has a decent frother but I've also had varying results with milks of different milkfat content, and milk from different dairies give different results.

It also matters how I angle the frother in the cup and how frothing starts. So many other things can affect frothing, so it may well be me!

8 readers marked as helpful

S. Deutsch

Aug. 08

What about soy milk?

6 readers marked as helpful

Carol S.

Aug. 08

I use Silk Unsweetened Organic and 75% of the time it is wonderful. The unwonderful frothing happens occasionally due to the strangely random inconsistent product: Silk seems to toy with their formula and these random containers produce thin, flavorless and inferior frothing. I have noticed this over the many years I've enjoyed frothing soy lattes at home. Aggravating. This week (after a good 6 months or so) I turned to Reddit and a workaround solution suggested was to add a drop or two of olive oil to the heated soy milk before frothing. It helps.

4 readers marked as helpful

Hide 1 reply

Carol S.

Aug. 08

@Carol S. Should have said "Silk SOY Unsweetened..."

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Richard M.

Aug. 08

I just buy traderjoes vanilla-flavored-cold-foam-creamer. Itʼs easy.

1 reader marked as helpful

mlb

Aug. 08

When I started making my own cappuccinos n the 1970s it was with a pull down Pavoni and a blend of milk mixed with light cream the way they did it coffee shops in Italy and in Vienna. Much better than the stuff you buy off the shelf today

3 readers marked as helpful

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Mme Flaneuse

Aug. 08

@mlb Oh, how I miss my 1977 manual lever Pavoni. You just brought back a ton of memories. Thx

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Eric

Aug. 08

I imagine doing a side-by-side comparison of different dairy milks would be challenging. I froth whole milk every morning and the difference in consistency can vary considerably from bottle to bottle of the same milk. I expect age is chiefly responsible for the variability.

2 readers marked as helpful

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Making Good Foam for Flat White

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