Make Your Own Organic Nut Milk

If you are vegan or simply cannot have dairy for any reason and have never made your own nutmilk, it is time to start!

Making your own means YOU have control over what goes in it and it is far less expensive than store bought.  

Have you every really read the labels closely on that over priced container in the store?  Even in many of the so-called organic brands, there is carrageenan and other unhealthy and unsavory ingredients.

It really only takes a two ingredients: a healthy water (we use filtered rain water) and whatever your choice of nut or seed you prefer.  You can choose to add your favorite organic sweetener and vanilla extract if you choose. It is incredibly easy and you will be wishing you had started doing this sooner.

This batch of nut milk I am making is almond from organic, raw almonds that have not been chemically treated. I have also made coconut, cashew, brazil nut, and hemp seed milks.  

How To Make Nut Milk

Start with one cup of your choice of nuts or seeds.  Cover with 1-2 cups of filtered water (this can be spring, rain, well, or even distilled water - best to avoid city tap water). 

Cover and let soak over night for whole nuts, or for at least a couple of hours for small seeds and coconut.  

Depending on what it is you are using, you may want to drain and rinse your nuts or seeds.  When I am making coconut or hemp seed milk, I do not bother with this step, but I do now with almonds. One reason why is so that it does not make the milk too dark in color but the other reason is to help remove the phytic acid that can cause digestive problems.  This is not a step I used to do with my almonds until I learned more about that. Before that, I was afraid that by draining and rinsing, I would be losing more of the health benefits of the nuts.

Put your nuts or seeds in the blender and add enough water to equal 4 cups.  You can also add in a 1-2 tsps of vanilla extract and an organic sweetener of choice such as 1-3 Medjool dates (making sure to remove the pits) or a Tablespoon or two of Coconut Sugar. 

For a richer milk, you may want to add less water.

Process on high for a few minutes until the pieces are very tiny and the liquid is the color of milk. 

Place a few layers of cheese cloth or a good cotton cloth over a batter bowl and secure with clothes pins.

 

 Strain the milk through the cloth and then carefully remove the pins one by one, gathering up the corners of the cloth so that you can manually squeeze as much milk out of the pulp as possible.

Do NOT throw out the pulp!  Make the most of this by using in baking. I usually use the moist pulp in muffins, cookies, or pancakes, but you can also dehydrate it and use it as a flour replacement. It may need to be ground up finer depending on how you are using it.

In the photo below is a batch of coconut milk I made where I also dehydrated the pulp on a stoneware sheet on my wood stove to use as a flour. 

You can also check out my video below on how I made hemp seed milk:

 

I hope you found this helpful as a way to save money and make a more healthy nut milk of your choice.  

Thank you so much for your time Faithful Reader!

~Heidi

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