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This Oat Milk Might Just Replace Your Dairy For Good

August 24, 2025

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These are best oat milks to pair with your coffee, cereal, and chocolate chip cookies.

This Oat Milk Might Just Replace Your Dairy For Good

It’s hard to remember, but about 10 years ago, few of us knew what oat milk was. Mainstream dairy-milk alternatives were limited to soy, almond, rice, and coconut — many of which are too watery or too overwhelming for your daily cup of coffee.

Oat milk, made from pulverized oats and water that’s then strained, hit the mainstream in the late 2010s, as major grocery chains added it and coffee shops embraced it. Today, it’s the most popular dairy-free milk in coffee shops, while almond milk still leads in retail. Oat milk is mild, creamy, and froths just like regular milk, meaning even vegans can enjoy latte art. But now that the market is saturated with oat milk brands, which ones are actually worth buying?

To help you decide which oat milks you should keep stocked — whether you’re vegan, dairy-free or simply a lover of oats — we tasted nine side by side.

How we selected the oat milks

For this taste test, we selected nine of the most popular, widely available oat milks on the market. Many of the brands have several oat milk products, varying in sweetness, creaminess, and flavors. Some brands also offer “barista” oat milk, formulated to steam and froth for lattes and cappuccinos.

We opted for each brand’s most basic oat milk, typically called “Original.” The exact meaning of “original” is different from brand to brand, but it’s usually unflavored, has a medium level of creaminess, and a mild sweetness from enzymes used during processing. If the brand didn’t have an “Original” oat milk (like Minor Figures, which produced only barista-style oat milk), we chose its most standard flavor.

How we tested

Oatmilk in three different plastic cups.

As with all of our taste tests, we tried every product side by side, completely unaware of which brands were included. The oat milks were chilled and poured into plastic cups, so our team of six editors could easily evaluate the appearance (who knew there were so many shades of beige?).

The editors tasted each oat milk in a random order, pouring them into their own tasting cups and scoring them on flavor and texture. For flavor, we were looking for oat milks with a mild oat flavor, with a subtle natural sweetness, and no aftertaste. For texture, we looked for a balanced, smooth mouthfeel that coats the tongue like dairy. We also gave each oat milk an overall rating that considered aroma, appearance and personal preferences — essentially, how likely we’d be to buy the oat milk again. The scores were averaged to determine our favorite oat milks.

Read on to discover the four that you should be adding to your coffee, pouring into your cereal, or even (gasp!) drinking straight from the glass.

Best overall: Oatly Oatmilk Original

A carton of Oatly oat milk on a light background

Oatly is the Platonic ideal of oat milk. It’s ultra creamy and luscious with a pronounced, subtly sweet oat flavor. It shouldn’t be a surprise — Oatly is widely credited as the original oat milk, and its founder, Rickard Öste, perfected his process in 1994.

Using this oat milk feels akin to high-quality dairy milk — and its viscosity adds a level of luxury to what could be the average shaken espresso or iced coffee, without obstructing the flavor. While some of our editors felt that it might be too creamy for everyday use (we wouldn’t imagine drinking it by the glass, unless there was a chocolate chip cookie to accompany it), the overall deliciousness of this oat milk still beat out the competition.

Most versatile: Planet Oat Original Oatmilk

This is an oat milk that you can use for pretty much anything. Planet Oat’s Original Oatmilk falls right in the middle between creamy and thin, making it ideal for both coffee and cereal. In fact, a few of our editors even noted that it tastes like cereal — like the milk left over in a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. There is no added sugars, but the oats impart a touch of natural sweetness.

Being one of the most oat-forward of the oat milks, the only thing we wouldn’t recommend it for is savory dishes — anything that would easily clash with the nutty, toasty flavor.

Most drinkable: Minor Figures Barista Oat

Carton of Minor Figures Barista Oat milk

On appearance alone, Minor Figures Barista Oat could be mistaken for dairy milk. It’s the whitest oat milk we tried, and is on the thinner side. But taste-wise, it’s entirely unique. There’s a distinct tanginess with every sip, reminiscent of kefir, a drinkable yogurt. Not every oat milk is enjoyable to drink on its own, but this one — delightfully smooth, velvety, and refreshing — is.

That being said, the distinct flavor of this product was a bit polarizing among our editors, with some calling it “bizarre” or “weird.” So while it might fill a hole for those who crave something milk-like to sip on, this oat milk might not be for everyone.

Best for cooking: Chobani Oatmilk Original

Chobani Oatmilk original carton with decorative illustrations featuring oat graphics and text highlighting no lactose nuts or gluten

The most common tasting note for this oat milk was “bland.” While it’s not often that we rave about something for its lack of flavor, in the case of oat milk, we see it as a win. The neutrality of this Chobani product would make it an excellent milk alternative for cooking and baking, having little to no impact on the overall flavor.

Our editors noted that the oat milk was a bit chalky — a consistency that’s not too pleasant to drink, but would be completely unnoticeable when combined with other ingredients.