Almond Milk

Intro: 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.

STEP 2: Soaking Over Night

-Place 1cup of almonds into a bowl, add water(use filtered water if you would like) so that it covers almonds.

-Soak in fridge overnight if you can or for a minimum of 4 hours.

STEP 3: Blend

-The following day drain water from the bowl of almonds.

-Place almonds in blender, add 3 cups of water (again you can use filtered water here) and blend until smooth*, this can take 1 to 2 minutes or so, depending on your blender.


*It is ready when it is more or less homogeneous and the almond particles are quite fine.

STEP 4: Strain and Serve

- Pour from blender into a sieve/cheesecloth over a container to collect the milk.

- If you are using a sieve, take a spatula and squeeze the pulp to get as much liquid out as you can. (If you are using a cheesecloth give it a good squeeze too). Don't throw out the pulp you can use for baking, etc.

- After it has been strained you can drink it as is or it can be flavoured or sweetened (see next step).

- Store in closed container in fridge. It will keep up to a week in fridge.

STEP 5: Options

Put the milk back into the blender (rinse the blender first) and add.....

To sweeten you can add any of the following and blend again until smooth.
-1 tablespoon sugar, honey, or maple syrup (adjust to taste)
or
-1 banana or 2 tablespoons pitted dates

For flavour you can add vanilla extract, or cocoa(or chocolate milk powder), or fruit puree, add to
taste. Blend again until smooth.

Store in closed container in fridge. It will keep up to a week in fridge.

A thicker milk
-you can make this a thicker drink, by reducing the amount of water you add when blending, try 2 cups instead of 3.

You can try roasting your nuts and seeds, this brings out their flavour.

-Before you soak your nuts/seeds(Step 2):
-Place in oven at 350F for ~5 minutes. Keep an eye on them, burnt nuts are not so good.
-Allow to cool and proceed to Step 2.

Enjoy!

Comments

[vikasK30]

turmeric milk here

[InstructaBro]

Gonna make this after I run to the shop to grab some almonds

[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