Do Any Refrigerators Make Nugget Ice?

Whirlpool: the only one, and it is new

Whirlpool announced it at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show on 9 February 2026, describing the product as "the industry's first refrigerator to feature an integrated in-door nugget ice maker" on a "36-inch Wide True Counter Depth 3-Door and 4-Door French Door Refrigerator". The machine carries dual ice makers, giving both soft chewable nugget ice and traditional cubed ice — nugget in the door, cubes from the freezer maker.

Two caveats come from Whirlpool itself. The press release footnotes the claim with "Industry First claims are subject to change pending launch finalization", and it states no price and no availability date. Both models now appear at authorized dealers — WRMC7436TZ at 21.86 cu. ft. in the 4-door body and WRFC7436TZ at 23.4 cu. ft. — and one dealer was quoting an 8-to-9-week backorder when this page was written, so stock is not yet dependable.

The number that decides it

The nugget maker is in the door, and the door is a small place. Abt lists the WRMC7436TZ at $3,599 with an in-door nugget bucket that holds up to 2.4 lbs of ice and makes up to 3 cups of nugget ice in 1 hour.

So the fridge wins exactly two things: it takes no counter space, and its bucket sits in a cooled door rather than in an unrefrigerated bin that is melting from the moment ice lands in it. That second point is genuinely valuable and it is the one real advantage — the whole reason countertop machines do not keep ice frozen is that none of them refrigerate the bin.

Everything else favours the counter. The machine on your worktop makes two to nearly four times the ice per day, costs an order of magnitude less, and can be replaced in five minutes when it dies. A refrigerator ice maker that fails is a service call on a $3,599 appliance.

GE: the brand everyone assumes, and it makes none

This is worth stating plainly because several buying guides ranking for this question get it wrong. GE does not sell a refrigerator that makes nugget ice. GE invented the home nugget category with the Opal and it owns the mindshare, but its nugget products are all standalone. Its own ice maker page lists a built-in undercounter nugget ice maker rated up to 50 pounds a day, the countertop Opal, the Opal 2.0 and the Opal Mini — and no refrigerator among them.

The undercounter unit is the one people mistake for a fridge feature. It is a separate appliance that installs under a worktop, it runs around $3,799 to $4,000, and it needs a water supply and usually a drain. If a built-in look is what you are buying, that is the honest comparison to make, and it is worked through on countertop versus undercounter.

Samsung Ice Bites: nugget-shaped, not nugget

Samsung is the brand most often cited in answer to this question, and the answer is a qualified no. Samsung's own buying guide describes Ice Bites as small, chewable nugget-shaped cubes [that] are gentle on teeth and chill your drinks faster than cubed ice. Note the wording: nugget-shaped.

The difference is the manufacturing method, and it is the whole reason nugget ice feels the way it does. Nugget ice is made by freezing a thin sheet of ice onto a cylinder, scraping it off as flakes, and compressing those flakes through an auger into soft pellets full of trapped air. That is why it crunches rather than cracks. Ice Bites are formed in a tray. They are small, they are chewable, and they are not flaky. How the auger process works is on nugget ice versus bullet ice.

Where you can get them, per Samsung's comparison table: the freezer ice maker offers Ice Bites on 4-Door Flex, 4-Door French Door, 3-Door French Door and Side-by-Side models, while the in-door ice maker offers them only on 3-Door French Door, on select Mega Capacity models. So if Ice Bites are good enough for you, they are available across a fair part of Samsung's range rather than on one halo model — which is a real advantage over Whirlpool's single new line.

LG Craft Ice is round, and that is the point of it

LG gets pulled into this question constantly because it also markets a specialty ice. It is not nugget ice and it is not trying to be: Craft Ice is slow-melting spherical ice for party cocktails and high-end liquors, and LG's ice line-up is Mini Craft Ice, Craft Ice, cubed and crushed. Nugget appears nowhere.

A sphere is the opposite design goal from a nugget. A ball has the least surface area for its volume, so it melts as slowly as possible and dilutes a whisky as little as possible. Nugget ice has enormous surface area, which is exactly why it chills fast, waters a drink down fast, and is lovely to chew. If you want one you do not want the other — the trade-off is set out on nugget ice for cocktails.

Who should actually buy the refrigerator

There is a real case for it, for a narrow group. Buy the Whirlpool if all of these are true at once:

1. You are replacing your refrigerator anyway. The nugget maker is then a feature premium on a purchase you were making, not a $3,599 ice decision.
2. You have no counter to spare, and you have ruled out an undercounter machine on cost or plumbing.
3. You want ice that stays frozen without you managing it. This is the one thing no countertop machine does.
4. Your demand is small and steady rather than occasional and large. At 16 lbs a day at best, and 2.4 lbs in the bucket, this is a two-drinks-at-a-time appliance.

If any one of those is false, the countertop machine is the better buy and the gap is not close. And if your demand is genuinely large — a party, a household of iced-drink drinkers — then neither of these is your answer and you should read how much ice you actually need before spending anything.

What to buy instead, and why these three

Judged on three criteria, in this order: a daily output figure its maker is willing to publish, a bin capacity its maker is willing to publish, and a price that makes the fridge comparison honest rather than rhetorical.

The Frigidaire Gallery EFIC255 is the default because both its headline numbers come from a manual rather than a listing: 44 lbs a day and 185 W. The GoveeLife is the one that gets closest to what people actually want from a fridge maker: 60 lbs a day and a 3.5 lb basket, the largest published bin on this site, plus app control so it is making ice before you walk in. And the Iceman by Chefman is here to make the price point unmissable: its published bin is 2.4 lbs — the identical figure Whirlpool quotes for the in-door bucket on a $3,599 refrigerator.

Each one has the same honest downside, and it is the fridge's one genuine advantage: the bin is not refrigerated, so ice you do not use melts and the machine re-freezes the same water. Whether to leave it running anyway is its own decision, worked through on leaving a nugget ice maker on.