Ripple Unsweetened Original Plant-Based Milk: 8g Protein per Cup, Labelgrade B (79/100)

The short answer

Ripple Unsweetened Original delivers 8 g of protein for 70 calories per cup — and it gets there with pea protein, not nuts or oats. That single design choice is the whole story: 8 g per cup matches reduced-fat dairy and laps every other plant milk on the shelf (Oatly 3 g, almond 1 g). Because this is the unsweetened SKU, it also carries 0 g sugar and 0 g total carbs, so it’s a protein source you can pour into coffee or a glass without a sugar penalty. It earns a B (79/100): sugar, sodium, and saturated fat are all A+, but the per-100 protein density is only good-for-a-beverage (not high-protein in absolute terms), and the ingredient list leans on phosphate stabilizers to hold the pea emulsion together.

Why the B

The honest tension in this grade: Ripple scores a mediocre C- on protein density yet is the best-in-class plant milk on protein per serving. Both are true. Per 100 ml it’s a 3.3 g beverage, which the formula rightly refuses to call “high-protein”; per cup it’s an 8 g pour that ties dairy, which is genuinely useful. The fiber “F” is structural — any strained milk loses its fiber — and the only real quality knock is the stabilizer stack (tricalcium phosphate, dipotassium phosphate, plus gum arabic, guar, and gellan) needed to keep pea protein and oil from separating.

The pea-protein advantage

The reason almond and oat milks are protein dead-ends is mechanical, not accidental. Almonds and oats are mostly fat and starch; once you blend and strain them, what’s left in the carton is a few grams of carbohydrate and a trace of protein — hence almond’s 1 g and oat’s 3 g per cup. Ripple sidesteps this by building the milk around isolated pea protein instead of a whole nut or grain, which lets it set the protein wherever it wants. It chose 8 g — the same as a cup of reduced-fat dairy. That is the only plant milk on the mainstream shelf where “milk for the protein” is a defensible sentence rather than wishful thinking.

The allergen-friendly angle

Pea protein does something nuts, soy, and dairy can’t: it clears all three of the big milk allergens at once. Cow’s milk is out for the lactose-intolerant and dairy-allergic; almond and cashew milks are out for tree-nut allergies; soy milk — the other high-protein plant option — is out for soy allergies. Ripple is dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free, and gluten-free, which makes it the rare high-protein milk a nut-and-soy-allergic household can actually use. If you only needed protein, soy milk gets you to ~7–8 g too; the moment a nut or soy allergy is on the table, Ripple is effectively the only option left that still delivers dairy-level protein.

How it compares

Against the plant-milk shelf it isn’t close: 8 g is more than double Oatly’s 3 g and eight times almond’s 1 g, and the unsweetened formula means 0 g of sugar where Oatly carries 7 g and the chocolate almond carries 19 g. The only thing here that out-proteins Ripple is the Quest shake at 30 g — but that’s a milk-protein concentrate beverage built as a meal replacement, a different category from a carton you splash in cereal. For the specific job of “a milk that also carries protein,” unsweetened Ripple is the strongest plant option on the market; the only step up in protein per cup is ultra-filtered dairy like Fairlife (12–13 g), at the cost of being dairy again.

Ingredients

Water, then a pea protein blend (water + pea protein) and sunflower or safflower oil — that’s the functional base. The rest is fortification and structure: vitamins A, D2, and B12; tricalcium phosphate and dipotassium phosphate (calcium plus emulsifier); sea salt and natural flavor; and three gums (arabic, guar, gellan) that keep the pea protein suspended in the oil-and-water mix so it doesn’t separate in the fridge. Nothing here is a sweetener — consistent with the 0 g sugar on the panel. (Verbatim list below, from Ripple’s published label.)

WATER, PEA PROTEIN BLEND (WATER, PEA PROTEIN), VEGETABLE OIL (SUNFLOWER OR SAFFLOWER OIL), CONTAINS LESS THAN 1% OF VITAMIN A PALMITATE, VITAMIN D2, VITAMIN B12, TRICALCIUM PHOSPHATE, DIPOTASSIUM PHOSPHATE, NATURAL FLAVOR, SEA SALT, GUM ARABIC, GUAR GUM, GELLAN GUM.

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Scope: This page applies specifically to Ripple Unsweetened Original Plant-Based Milk (12 fl oz/355 mL) · UPC 855643006014. Other sizes, flavors, or formulations may differ.