You don’t need to buy yourself a frother to be able to enjoy frothed milk in coffee or other drinks at your own home. Buying a frother could be too expensive, not a good investment for how much you would use it, or you might just feel like it’s an unnecessary tool to have.
The good news is that there are many different ways that you can froth oat milk from your home, with tools that you probably already have in your kitchen.
What Makes Milk Froth?
Frothing milk isn’t always as simple as creating bubbles. There’s a reason that those bubbles are able to form, and it’s not just from introducing air into milk.
Regular cow’s milk is able to froth much easier than oat milk. This is because of the fats and proteins that are in cow’s milk, which make it easier to froth.
The fat content of milk is what makes it easy to froth. Milks that are either low in fat or high in fat are easiest to froth (for example, skim milk and heavy cream).
The proteins are what enables cow’s milk to hold foam. The protein creates a film around the foam bubbles, allowing them to stay formed for a long period of time.
What Makes Oat Milk Froth?
Oat milk is harder to froth than cow’s milk because the ingredients do not have the same elements that cow’s milk does. The base ingredients of oat milk are simply oats and water.
To make oat milk, the oats are soaked in water. Depending on the recipe, this amount of time that the oats are soaked in the milk could vary.
While oat milk is able to froth, it will be a bit more difficult to get it to the same amount of froth that cow’s milk can get to. The best thing to do is to try to find an oat milk that is made for frothing.
You can find a barista version of oat milk in a lot of stores. This means that it is specifically formulated to froth, and will be a lot easier to work with than regular oat milk.
However, you do not have to buy a special kind of oat milk. Regular oat milk should work just fine when you are trying to froth it.
1 – Froth Oat Milk in a Jar
This is a very simple method of frothing oat milk, and only uses a jar, which most people already have in their homes.
The first thing to do is to make sure that your jar is the right size for being able to froth oat milk. While any size jar will be able to froth oat milk, you need to make sure that you have enough room in the jar for the amount of oat milk that you want to froth.
In general, having about half to two-thirds of empty room in the jar will give the oat milk enough room to froth in.
Pour as much oat milk as you need into the jar, making sure that you don’t surpass the halfway point of the jar.
Then, all you need to do to create foam is to shake the jar. It could take you a few minutes to get the amount of froth that you want, but the timing will depend on how much milk you have.
Make sure that you aren’t trying to froth too much oat milk at a time. You have to shake the jar by hand, so you’ll want to make sure that the amount of oat milk in the jar is light enough that you can shake it for an extended period of time.
Once you have frothed the oat milk, pour it from the jar and into a microwave safe bowl to heat it.
2 – Froth Oat Milk in a Blender
To froth oat milk in a blender, all you have to do is pour oat milk into the blender and set it on a high speed.
You need to make sure that you are leaving enough room in the blender for the oat milk to build foam, but this shouldn’t be a problem as blenders have a high capacity level.
However, it will take less time to froth a smaller amount of foam, so you shouldn’t try to blend more than two drink’s worth of oat milk in a blender at a time, to make sure that you have a nice even amount of foam in each drink if you are making several.
After you blended the oat milk enough that it built up a good amount of foam, you can pour it into a microwave safe bowl and heat it.
3 – Froth Oat Milk in a Food Processor
Frothing oat milk in a food processor is almost the same as using a blender to froth oat milk. However, it might actually be easier to use a food processor because they are generally wider than blenders, and would be able to introduce more air.
Other than that, they use the same method. Pour in as much oat milk as you need and blend it on a high speed.
Make sure that when you pour the oat milk you are paying attention to the maximum capacity of the food processor, and the oat milk and foam will not exceed the maximum amount.
Once you are done blending, and have created as much foam as you want, you can pour the oat milk into a microwave safe bowl and heat it up.
4 – Froth Oat Milk with an Electric Mixer
This method can either be with a hand electric mixer or with a stand mixer. If you have whisk attachments, they will make the milk froth faster, so you should attach those to your hand mixer or your stand mixer.
Pour the oat milk into a large bowl. Try to use a microwave safe bowl to make it easier to heat later, if you have one that is suitable to mix it in.
Then, mix it on a high speed until you see enough foam forming.
After you have all the foam that you want, you can heat up the frothed oat milk.
If the bowl you used to froth it in is microwave safe, you can just leave it in that while you heat it up. If not, simply transfer it to a microwave safe bowl before heating.
5 – Froth Oat Milk with a Whisk
Mixing oat milk with a whisk is similar in idea to what you would do with a hand electric mixer or a stand mixer. Doing it by hand will take a lot longer, but the effect will be the same.
Pour the oat milk in a large bowl. If you have a large enough microwave safe bowl, you should use that.
Whisk the oat milk until you see that enough foam has formed. Since you are doing this by hand, it will likely take a few minutes, and you will have to be patient.
You will start to see bubbles forming, and soon after there should be foam built up. Once you have enough foam, you can stop whisking the oat milk.
If you have it in a microwave safe bowl already, you are ready to heat it up. If you do not, all you have to do is transfer it to a microwave safe bowl before heating it.
6 – Froth Oat Milk with a Hand Immersion Blender
Using a hand immersion blender to froth oat milk is possible, but it can be a bit messy. If you are able to use a different method, you should try that before using a hand mixer, as it will likely be easier.
However, using a hand immersion blender to froth oat milk isn’t that bad. All you have to do is make sure that you use a tall enough bowl so that the milk does not spill out easily.
Pour oat milk into a tall bowl, preferably one that is microwave safe to make heating it up easier, but that is not essential.
Then, use the hand immersion blender to froth the oat milk. Make sure that you are careful not to lift the hand immersion blender too far out of the oat milk, or it will spray oat milk out of the bowl.
Once you have enough foam built up, you can heat the milk. If you do not have your oat milk in a microwave safe bowl, transfer it to one before you heat it.
How to Use Frothed Oat Milk
Frothed oat milk is great for a lot of different hot drinks.
When you add espresso, you can make drinks such as lattes, cappuccinos, or macchiatos.
You can also add it to coffee to make a cafe au lait.
There are some tea-based drinks that you can add frothed oat milk to, as well. Making a chai tea latte or a matcha green tea latte is easy to do when you have frothed oat milk.
Sarah is the founder of Baking Kneads, LLC, a blog sharing guides, tips, and recipes for those learning how to bake. Growing up as the daughter of a baker, she spent much of her childhood learning the basics in a local bakery.