I love milk. It’s creamy, filling, delicious, and makes coffee and tea taste like dessert. As someone who does not have a stomach of steel, I try to avoid drinking regular milk and instead drink almond milk, a drink that I personally view as the nectar of the Gods only behind the Holy Grail of coffee.
Photo courtesy of @julia_fuller on Instagram
I geek out about food a fair amount, and in typical fashion, I’ve been reading about almond milk and investigating the back of the carton while I eat breakfast. Unfortunately, I’ve found that almond milk sold at most stores isn’t the healthy drink that I believed it to be.
I don’t mean to be sounding an unnecessary alarm. Almond milk is fine and the added ingredients are probably necessary to prolong shelf life and ensure consumer safety. But it kind of bums me out that I’m not just drinking almonds and water.
So I decided to try making it myself. It turns out that homemade almond milk is actually super easy and tastes incredible, plus it doesn’t have any of the additives of the store-bought option.
Almond Milk
Ingredients
Instructions
Put the almonds in a mixing bowl and fill with water until the almonds are fully submerged. Soak the almonds overnight.
#SpoonTip: If you don’t want to wait overnight for your milk, you can just soak the almonds for a couple of hours and it doesn’t seem to make a huge difference.
Put the almonds in a food processor. While processing, continue to add water slowly.
Leave the food processor on for about a minute or two until the water turns a milky, opaque color and the almonds are finely ground. Stretch some cheesecloth over a mixing bowl – this will serve as your strainer in a few moments.
#SpoonTip: I tape my cheese cloth to the bowl so that it stays taut and unmoving throughout this whole process.
Turn off the food processor and slowly pour its contents over the cheesecloth-covered mixing bowl.
Let the almond pulp sit on top of the cheesecloth for about a minute so that the milk has time to really drain down into the bowl.
Scrape the almond pulp into a Tupperware for storage and put it to good use at a later date, or just dump it out.
If you want to sweeten or flavor your almond milk, now is a great time. Remove the cheesecloth from the bowl with care, so as not to spill the milk. Stir in something sweet like honey, agave nectar, or maple syrup. Add only a little bit at a time and make sure to taste as you go. My favorite is to add just a smidge of maple syrup, a liberal amount of cinnamon, and a splash of vanilla.
Transfer the milk from the mixing bowl into a storage container. I usually use a big jar but anything that seals well will do.
#SpoonTip: This almond milk should stay fresh for about four days in the fridge so enjoy some nutty goodness.