Best Ice Cream Makers of 2026

The bowl you don't have to freeze is the whole pitch, and it's a good one. A self-contained compressor chills the mix while the paddle turns, so nothing has to live in your freezer and nothing has to be decided the night before. We think that's worth paying for if dessert in your house is a whim rather than a schedule, and it's why the ICM-200LS is the pick for anyone whose freezer is already full of actual food.

It holds 2.1 quarts and runs off an LCD panel with an audible countdown timer, so you set it and walk away instead of hovering. The aluminum mixing bowl and churn blade lift out, which matters more than it sounds: the bowl is the part that ends up coated, and carrying it to the sink beats wiping down a fixed housing. Stainless outside, and it reads as a piece of equipment rather than a toy.

The one thing to plan around is heat. A compressor has to shed what it pulls out of the bowl, and back-to-back churns can leave the second batch stalling short of firm, so give it a rest between rounds and it will churn all afternoon. If you've been put off by machines that never quite freeze, this is the design that removes the usual cause: a bowl that never got cold enough in the first place.

There's a handle on the front of this machine that pulls down and dispenses soft serve straight into a cone, and that's the difference between a pint machine and a dessert your kids will ask for. The NC701 swirls as well as scoops, which none of the bowl-style machines on this list can do.

The method is different from everything else here. You blend a base, pour it into one of the two 16-ounce pints, freeze it for a day, then let the machine shave the block into cream. Thirteen one-touch programs cover ice cream, gelato, sorbet, milkshake, frozen custard, fruit whip, and a high-protein setting, with a mix-in cycle and a pull-out drip tray for the inevitable drips. The parts are dishwasher safe, which is more than most of the machines here can claim.

We like it best for a household that eats dessert in small amounts and wants control over what's in it, because a pint is the unit of everything: you freeze what you want, spin what you want, and nothing goes to waste. The swirl press is the part that sells it to kids; the program list is the part that keeps it in rotation after the novelty wears off. It rewards a little planning — the base has to be in the freezer the day before — and it makes a genuinely creamy pint from yogurt and fruit when you don't want a custard project.

You buy ice by the bag and rock salt by the box, and you drain meltwater out of a plastic bucket when the batch is done. That's the trade with a bucket-style machine, and in exchange you get four quarts in a single churn — a gallon of ice cream, enough for a party, a big family, or a batch you fully intend to put in the freezer for later.

The other half of that trade works in its favor: there's no bowl to pre-chill, so a craving doesn't have to be scheduled a day ahead. Fill the canister, layer ice and rock salt around it, plug in, and the motor does the churning while you do something else. Most batches come together somewhere between half an hour and forty minutes, and what you get at the end is soft serve that firms up once it hits the freezer. Mix-ins go in near the end or get stirred through as you transfer the batch to containers.

Cleanup is easier than the bucket suggests: the canister rinses, the bucket rinses, and there's no motor housing to wipe down carefully. Ten minutes at the sink and it's back on the shelf for next time, which is the kind of maintenance a big machine has to clear to be worth owning.

Where it earns its place is the arithmetic. Four quarts at a time, no pre-freezing, and a bucket you can carry out to the porch while it runs — if your summer involves a crowd and a car trip for ice anyway, this beats a two-quart counter machine that needs a bowl babysat in the freezer. It's the pick for people who want one impressive batch rather than a weekly habit.

Seven inches square and under three pounds: this is the machine that fits on the shelf above the microwave instead of claiming counter. We like it for exactly that reason. The motor detaches, the lid stacks on top, the cord wraps around the base, and the whole thing disappears between uses. For one person, or two people who want a scoop each rather than a container, a pint is also the right size of batch.

It churns that pint in about 25 minutes and takes mix-ins through a funnel in the lid, so chocolate chips go in without stopping the paddle. The lid and paddle are dishwasher safe and the bowl rinses clean by hand. The bowl is the part that doesn't shrink, though: it needs room in the freezer and a full pre-chill before you can churn, so measure that shelf as carefully as you measured the counter.

A timer you can set anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes is the feature that stands out, and it solves a real problem: stop the churn early for a soft, spoonable batch or let it run toward a firmer set, no guesswork and no hovering. Three buttons, a see-through lid, and a port you can pour through without lifting anything — the controls are simple and the useful part sits right in front of you.

The pot is aluminum inside an insulated shell, the same idea as a plastic freezer bowl but in metal, and it holds 2.1 quarts, which is enough for three to five people with leftovers. Our reservation is upkeep: everything that touches the ice cream is hand wash only. And it's still a freezer-bowl machine, so a day of planning applies. What you're paying for is the adjustable timer and the pouring port, and if those are the two things you've been missing, this is the least expensive way to get them.

Four quarts for less than any other machine on this list: that's the EIM350's reason to exist, and it isn't a small one. A gallon of ice cream in a single churn is a birthday party, a block party, or a whole summer of Sunday sundaes. The periwinkle bucket is cheerful enough that nobody minds it sitting out while it works.

It's a traditional machine: an aluminum canister inside a plastic bucket, a 50-watt motor on top, and a rock-salt-and-ice slurry around the canister doing the freezing. Three steps, no pre-freezing, and a canister that wipes out afterwards. The motor is the modest part. With a rich custard base or a tightly packed bucket, a batch can run well past the half hour the booklet suggests, and a soft, slushy result means it needed longer rather than that anything failed.

Where it lands for us is occasional use. For a few parties a summer, the capacity is worth far more than the refinement you give up, and plastic bucket and lid don't owe anyone elegance. If you plan to churn every week, spend the extra on the Hamilton Beach or a two-quart counter machine instead. If you want a gallon twice a summer with the kids in the yard, this does the job and asks very little of you.