Almond Milk

Here is a great alternative to cow, soy and rice milk , which is tasty and really easy to make yourself. You can drink it straight, add to smoothies, and it's excellent on cereal!

If you are not into almonds you can also use cashews, pecans, pine nuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, or any other nut or seed you can think of.

Step 1 Materials:

1 cup skinless(blanched)* almonds (or nut/seed of your choice) - whole, or ground
3 cups water -filtered (plus water to soak)
blender
sieve or cheesecloth
bowl
pitcher with lid (to store milk when done)
spatula
measuring cup

*If you can only find almonds with the skin still on, your milk will have little bits of almond skin floating around. If this bothers you, you can blanch them.

Blanching
-pour boiling water over almonds, to cover them
-after ~1min drain, rinse under cold water and drain.
-pat dry, and slip the skin off.

Comments

[vreid]

Please tell me why the soaking water has to be thrown out?

From a cooks point of view that would be nutrients and flavor going down the drain.

[jhart2483]

You should always discard the liquid used to soak beans or nuts. Part of what you are doing by soaking is removing harmful enzymes and activating the dried nut or bean. You don't want to add that back in again later.
I am not sure about nuts, but when soaking dried beans, using whey (from yogurt or cheese making) adds so much nutrition and virtually ends some of the embarrassing side effects that i no long use plain water

[ChrysN]

Thanks, that is a good point, you can save the water and blend it with the almonds in the blender.

[vreid]

Thank you for your speedy reply :)

I am looking forward to making my own Almond Milk after seeing and reading your tuturial.

[vreid]

Maybe there is a good reason after all, my cousin sent me this link on FB...I am going to give it a good read

http://www.goodhealthwellnessblog.com/237/health-benefits-of-soaking-almonds/

[ChrysN]

Interesting, I will have to remember that, thanks for posting the link.

[sunshiine]

Thanks for sharing this recipe! My husband can not drink milk so this will be a good alternative.

[ChrysN]

The only thing is that it is not fortified with vitamin D as cow and store bought soy milk is.

[sunshiine]

To me that is not that important. I feel a lot of times we do not benefit from added vitimins because they aren't the highest grade. So how much value are we really getting? When I buy vitimins I buy from health food stores and usually try to get vitimins from the most natural sources possible. Plant iron for an example.

I don't know a lot about it, just enough to feel I might be doing something correct. LOL.

[grantgotiger]

you should try it in coffee

[kmoyer1]

This looks great!!

[ChrysN]

Thanks!

[alanton]

Great recipe,been meaning to try to make some.

[shooby]

Not bad, what happens to the pulp though?

[ChrysN]

You can use it for baking (cookies, bars, breads). I used the pulp from this batch to make chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and just used the almond pulp instead of oats. This may make it a bit moist, you can reduce some of the liquids in the recipe, if you want. I didn't reduce the liquids and it turned out really delicious anyway.

[handprints]

I am very glad that you published this instructable! Do you know how long the pulp will last in the freezer?

Are you going to post your oatmeal cookie recipe?

(you're my fav!)

[ChrysN]

Thanks, I'll see if I can find the cookie recipe, its been a while since I made them, I've mostly been adding the almond pulp to my cereal. I'm not to sure how long it would last in the freezer, I tend to use it right away. If it is in an airtight container it should last several weeks.

[hi111]

 Can I Use Walnuts or Pecans

[doomsdayltd]

you can do the same thing with rice as well

[ChrysN]

I've never tried, but I'm sure that they would work too.

[miller613]

A shorter version to making almond milk if youre really thirsting for it and don't have the time or patience to make it yourself like me, you can buy the Almondie almond butter. its also a concentrate for making milk. They are the only ones as far as i know that peel the inner peels of the almonds like this recipe does (right on!) and they tell you how to make the milk on their website. You can google them.
And they are super yummy and super natural. i just had some today with honey and apples. yummy snack...

[ChrysN]

Sounds good!

[marliz]

Squeezing the almonds (I use a muslin bag meant for draining yogurt) is the hardest part for me, especially with arthritic hands. Be great if someone could come up with a "press" that would be usable for this.

Maybe I'll ask DH...

[ChrysN]

Yes, it would be nice if there was a easier way to squeeze the almonds.

[amberhogue30]

Don't forget to add in your time to make this. I pay 2.99 for almond breeze and it takes me 30 seconds to pick it up in the grocery store. Well worth the 2.99.

[megmaine]

I too am a fan of the Almond Breeze, but don't like that in my area at least, those tetra paks are not recyclable, and aside from that, due to the plastic liner in every heat-processed box, I drink plasticizers in each sip.

Almond Breeze is the best-tasting commercial almond milk in my opinion, and no doubt convenient, but the taste pales compared to homemade.
Since the hassle of homemade is limited to pushing the puree button and then squeezing or straining out the almond meal (which then gets toasted and makes great crusts, toppings, cereal, porridge stir-ins, granola, cookies, etc), I find making it from scratch is a small amount of effort for a lot of great results.

Still, better to support the growing of almond trees over the practices of factory farming, if the grocery store is your best option.

[Flash Gordon]

Awesome my dad has lots o seed and imma try it with tons of different Seeds. SEEDS RULE!

[thepelton]

There are people who are extremely allergic to nuts who would need to know what it was before they drank it, but it sounds like a nice drink for the rest of us.

[alternativeinsanity]

cool, I'm going to try this. It sounds great!

[crestind]

Looks delicious!

[aquacrusher]

HOORAH! Now I just have to do price comparison between the cost of buying the almonds and paying $3.50 CAD a liter (4.2 cups of liquid) for Almond Breeze (the chocolate one is soooo tasty, I must attempt its creation :D ).

[ChrysN]

Yes, almonds can be a bit pricey, I was lucky when I bought them for this batch of almond milk they were on sale 99 cents CAD for 100 grams (it's normally $1.99).

[oilpaint2]

Been looking alternatives for cows and soy milk which I am both allergic to them. This is good idea and one I am going to try out. Question, I know if you eat to many nuts you can get the runs, (personal experience first, and followed by doctor's confirmation of this fact) would this happen if you had too much of this almond milk or nut milk? If anyone knows please reply to me. Thanks oilpaint2

[ChrysN]

I'm not sure if nut milks would give you problems, there is actually quite a lot of nut pulp leftover after making this recipe so I'm not sure how much of the nuts you actually get in each glass of milk. The other option is to try making it with seeds, such as sunflower, pumpkin or hemp(if you can get it). Unless you have the same problem with seeds.

[pyro13]

Very cool. Looks good. Hemp seeds? wow lol

[ChrysN]

Hemp seeds are delicious, don't worry they don't have any THC.

[pyro13]

awwww hahaha. Ok, ill have to try some sometime.