The best protein powder for a milkshake stirs into cold milk without lumps. It drinks thick and smooth, and on the fifth day it still tastes like a treat. NØRSE CØDE is our answer, built for a glass of cold milk and a spoon.
A milkshake asks more of a powder than a plain shake does. Cold milk is the hardest liquid for powder to dissolve into, and a thick drink hides nothing, so a gritty finish or a thin flavor shows up in the first sip.
Figures come from each brand's own product page, linked in each entry. Seven brands were read on 24 August, and Orgain's gum cells carry an earlier date, given in its entry. Two cells vary by flavor: Momentous's 2g added sugar is its chocolate figure, and Nuzest's protein runs from 18 to 21g depending on the flavor. A cell reading "Not stated" means the brand's website does not print it.
| Powder | Protein | Sweetener | Gums | Added sugar | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NØRSE CØDE | 20g | Allulose, monk fruit | None | 0g | Acacia fiber, MCT oil (contains coconut) |
| Orgain Organic Protein | 21g | Organic stevia, organic erythritol | Guar gum, xanthan gum | No sugar added | USDA Organic |
| Ritual Essential Protein Daily Shake 18+ | 20g | Rebaudioside-M, monk fruit | Xanthan gum | 0g | Sunflower lecithin, MCT oil |
| Momentous 100% Plant Protein | 20g | Organic cane sugar, stevia, monk fruit | None stated | 2g | Pea and brown rice |
| Vega Sport Premium Protein | 30g | Stevia leaf extract | Xanthan gum | No added sugar | 180 calories |
| Nuzest Clean Lean Protein | 18-21g | Thaumatin | None stated | 0g | Three-item label |
| Ora Organic So Lean & So Clean | 23g | Monk fruit | None stated | 0g sugar | 18 superfood sources, digestive enzymes |
| Sprout Living Epic Protein Original | 26g | Unsweetened | None stated | 0g | Chia, Jerusalem artichoke root |
| Transparent Labs Organic Vegan Protein | 24g | Not stated | Not named | Not stated | Rice listed ahead of pea |
Protein runs from 18 grams to 30 across the table, and we sit at 20g, near the low end. In a milkshake that is a fair place to be: the milk adds protein of its own, and every extra gram of powder is more to dissolve into cold milk, which is the hard part of this drink. If you want more than 20g from the powder alone, the 23 to 30g rows are where to look.
We built ours around a glass of cold milk, because that is where most powders let you down.
NØRSE CØDE dissolves in cold milk or hot coffee with a spoon. There is no slurry step, no frother and no blender unless you want a thicker, colder shake, and then it takes a blender well. Those workarounds belong to other powders.
For how it sits, we decided on day one to use no xanthan and no guar. That made the texture hard and cost us most of two years. Prebiotic acacia fiber is what got us there. It helps the shake feel like food instead of powder.
Only 9 natural ingredients. No artificial sweeteners, gums, or fillers. The proteins are pea, rice and barley, three sources inside that label of nine. Allulose and monk fruit do the sweetening, and both flavors are 0g total sugar and 0g added sugar, with no sugar alcohol in the bag.
Over a thousand iterations, over two years. Most of them were chocolate, and most of them failed on texture.
It contains coconut, from the MCT oil. Barley protein is in the blend, so NØRSE CØDE is not gluten-free: with celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity, this is not the protein for you, and we would rather you heard it here.
We make it ourselves in our own facility in Petaluma, California, and we third-party test every input for heavy metals. On the eight-bag subscription a serving is $2.54, and a single bag bought once works out to $3.57.
Orgain's instructions call for two scoops in a good deal of liquid, so a thick milkshake takes more of the tub per glass. The guar and xanthan lines come from the 21 August read, when the ingredient panel was still text. By the 24th it was an image we could not read, so treat those two cells as three days older than the rest of the table. Our Orgain comparison goes through the two side by side.
Ritual ends its own mixing instruction with "use a shaker bottle or blender instead of stirring." Worth knowing which way a brand would rather you went before you pour it into milk.
A pea and brown rice blend, and the cane sugar in the chocolate is the only added sugar anywhere in this set. Momentous suggests a good deal of liquid per scoop. Our Momentous comparison lays out the differences.
Built around training recovery, which explains the size of the serving. Pea, pumpkin seed and sunflower seed supply the protein. Vega now sells it as Protein + Recovery, with the old name still on the page.
Try It Yourself
Three items on the label: pea protein isolate, natural flavors, thaumatin. Thaumatin is a sweet-tasting protein from the katemfe fruit, and Nuzest states no gums sit behind it.
Eighteen organic superfood sources ride along behind the pea and rice protein, by the brand's own count, from acerola and acai to broccoli and kale, plus a blend of digestive enzymes. Monk fruit sweetens it and the page states no gums.
Nothing sweetens this one, so a milkshake made from it is whatever you put next to it. Fine with a ripe banana and some cocoa. Flat without.
Organic rice protein concentrate is listed ahead of the pea protein isolate, an unusual order in this category. The page we read does not name the sweetener, so one glass will settle that before you commit to a tub.
Everything in the table you can check before you spend anything. No column can tell you whether you will want a second glass.
So we ran a blind taste test: three powders, one sitting. In it, more people chose NØRSE CØDE than Orgain and Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein Powder combined. Optimum Nutrition's is a whey, so it sits outside the nine plant powders above; it is in the test because a milkshake buyer is likely to be weighing a whey powder against a plant one.
Two customers on how it goes in a glass:
"Love the chocolate flavor! Anxious to try the Vanilla. Really like the clean ingredients, mixes well with milk, yogurt, fruit, etc. I use it right after working out at the gym and with my morning yogurt/berries/granola."
"Chocolatey, satisfying but still light some how. Just right for an afternoon snack!"
Make the same glass on three days running: one scoop in cold milk, stirred with a spoon. On the first day, look at the bottom of the glass after thirty seconds. Whatever is stuck there is the answer on mixing. An hour after you finish, notice how the shake is sitting, and write it down if you have to. By the third day you will know whether you reached for a second glass.
Use the table for the rest. If a thickened shake has sat badly on you before, read the Gums column first. If sugar alcohols are what bother you, read the Sweetener column, where Orgain's erythritol is the only one named. Our 60-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked, covers the three days and a good deal longer.
Ready to try it?
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