Why Making Your Own Milk?

While it sounds complicated, milking your own almonds and oats is simple and has benefits. Yes, you can laugh about the “milking” part. Anyway, if you are like me, you try to limit the amount of ingredients in food products (less sugars, less sodium, no non-specific ingredients like “natural flavor”). I feel the simpler/more natural ingredients you consume, the better and easier on your digestive tract. A LOT of things pass through our digestive tract, so it really could use some compassion, don’t you think?!

Making your own milk at home minimizes your consumption of all those extra products added to your milk for thickening, preservation and flavor. It is not that the vegan store-bought milks are terrible. You can see nutrition, ingredients and processing concerns per product using the EWG’s Food Scores webpage. It is just that we can do better and get more out of it than just milk. Yes, you get almond and oat pulp out of this whole “milking” process. IF YOU LOVE BAKING, almond and oat pulp could be your best new ingredient in your wholesome baked goodies.

Here is the recipe for approximately 56 oz of almond oat milk!

Ingredients:

3 Cups of Almonds
- Avoid chemically pasteurized nuts. If you are wondering why check the simple explanation of Almond Lane.
3 Cups of rolled oats
- Go with organic oats to reduce glyphosate consumption. Here is an old but very informative article that talks about glyphosate.
80 oz of water
- Part of this could be coconut water (optional)
Pinch of salt

Kitchen tools:

Blender
Cheesecloth
Strainer
Glass container to store milk
Mixing bowl to catch the milk as it is filtered
Ceramic or glass container to store the pulp

Milk Making:

Step 1: Soak your almonds in water for at least 12 hours. I put them to soak when I go to bed (around 10 pm) then at noon of the next day, I just rinse and proceed to make milk.
Step 2: Using a blender (I have a Ninja), add your almonds, dry oats, and water.
- No more than 60-72oz of water so you don’t make a mess.
Step 3: Blend for at least 3-4 minutes.
Step 4: Place your cheesecloth over your strainer and your strainer over a mixing container. Now, start filtering your almond oat milk using this setup. After I put enough of the blended almonds and oats on the cloth and all the possible liquid has gone through, I grab the cheesecloth and, with very clean hands, I squeeze and twist. This helps to get more milk out of the blended product/pulp.
Step 5: Hopefully you have left a lot of pulp in the blender, as it is hard to filter all the milk at once. Go ahead and add the rest of the water and blend again. After blending for 3 minutes, repeat step 4.

Now that you have your milk, transfer it to a glass container and don’t forget to add the salt. I add a pinch of salt per glass bottle. Be aware, some people add emulsifiers to prevent fat and water separation. I have even heard of boiling the almonds for preventing separation too. I don’t do any of these things! Separation is natural, and it does not mean the milk has gone bad. I have never made milk for more than four days. My milk lasts four days in my fridge without going bad. Yes, it looks funny and separated before use—see picture below. Don’t worry, just shake the bottle before using the milk.

Note: Don’t throw away your pulp! I leave my pulp in the strainer and put it in a container in the fridge. I don’t seal the container. I just cover it with a cheesecloth and use the pulp within a day or two. What can you do with the pulp? Cookies, pies, breads… You name it.