Making your own nut milk at home can be an empowering step toward health and well-being for you and your family.
Commercial nut milk and dairy-free alternatives can be overpriced and are often full of additives. For those of us that need to avoid common gut irritants, like guar gum and carrageenan, using store-bought nut milk is not an option. Plus, it’s easy and fun! All you need is a blender and some cheesecloth or a nut milk bag to create healthy, dairy-free milk alternatives.
Almond Milk
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Yield: 1 quart
Ingredients:
1 cup raw almonds
8 cups filtered water, divided
1/4 teaspoon sea salt, divided
1 small date, pitted
Method:
Place almonds in a bowl with 4 cups of filtered water and 1/8 teaspoon of the salt and soak for 10 hours or overnight.
Drain the nuts and rinse well. transfer them to a blender and fill with 4 cups filtered water. Add the date and the remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt and blend until smooth.
Strain the milk through a fine-mesh sieve, a nut milk bag, or doubled cheesecloth. Squeeze to remove all of the liquid. Store in the refrigerator for 5 days.
A few tips
I use a Vitamix Pro 7500, but any blender will do.
Cheesecloth can work great, but I use a nut milk bag. You can order the bag I use on Amazon.
You can also make cashew, hazelnut or brazil nut milk. Soak cashews for 4 hours. Hazelnuts and brazil nuts don’t need to be soaked because they don’t contain the enzyme inhibitors that prevent nuts from being digested properly- so you can make milk from those nuts at the drop of a hat.
Many of us are concerned about the water shortage in California, and thus want to limit our purchase of Almonds. If so, cashews are a fabulous alternative. My husband prefers cashew milk and I tend to make it more often as the nuts are soaked for less time and less pulp is produced.
There are many uses for the leftover almond pulp, so be sure to save it and look for recipes online!
Enjoy!
[…] recommend making your own Almond Milk. Check out my simple homemade almond milk recipe. I like to add purified water to my smoothie in addition to the almond milk so it’s not as […]