Homemade Almond Milk

Homemade Almond Milk~ It might sound intimidating to make your own almond milk. You may be thinking, "how do you milk an almond anyway?" It's easier than you think, and way tastier than store bought!

Soak the almonds overnight - (or use fast soak method if you're short on time), then pop the almonds out of their skins, rinse, and drop into your high speed blender.

After blending, pour into a nut bag and squeeze the milk out into a bowl. Okay, I have to say the hardest part of all this was walking into Whole Foods and timidly asking the elderly gentleman who worked there where I can find nut bags. Thankfully, without hesitation, he walked me directly over to where they were. Hopefully you can find one on your own. If not, or you're too timid to ask you can use a clean kitchen towel.

Within minutes, delicious frothy vanilla almond milk!

Get creative! Strawberry and chocolate are two of my favorites.

Homemade Almond Milk

Ingredients

Plain almond milk:

• 6 cups filtered water

• 1 cup raw unsalted almonds

• ½ tsp salt - for soaking

Vanilla milk:

• 6 pitted madjool dates

• ½ tsp vanilla extract or 2 vanilla beans scraped

• ⅛ tsp cinnamon

Chocolate Milk:

• 8 pitted medjool dates

• 2-3 tbsp cocoa powder

• 2-3 tbsp pure maple syrup

• ½ tsp vanilla extract or 2 vanilla beans scraped

• ⅛ tsp cinnamon

• ⅛ tsp sea salt

Strawberry milk:

• 6 pitted madjool dates

• ½ tsp vanilla extract or 2 vanilla beans scraped

• 1 cup fresh or frozen strawberries

Tools you will need

• High speed blender (Vitamix)

• Nut milk bag, clean towel or t-shirt

• Bottles or jars with lids to store almond milk

Directions

Overnight soak method - Preferred: In a medium bowl, soak almonds overnight in about 3 cups of water and 1/2 tsp. salt (for at least 8 hours)

Fast soak method: In a medium bowl, soak almonds and about 3 cups boiling water and 1/2 tsp. salt. Stir and let sit for at least 30 minutes. One hour is best. The longer you leave them to soak, the less pulp you will have when you strain the milk.

When almonds are done soaking, drain and rinse the almonds with cool water. Remove the peels by squeezing the almonds. Discard the peels. Removing the peels is optional but leads to less pulp in the end. This is a fun task the little ones.

Add the soaked almonds and 4 cups of filtered water to your Vitamix or high speed blender. Blend on low for three minutes. Then blend on medium high for 1 minute to churn the milk. Make sure to hold the lid on the blender so there are no explosions.

Strain the milk through a nut milk bag into a bowl by slowly squeezing and ringing out the bag. This takes about 3 minutes. Scoop the pulp that you are left with from the bag back into the blender. Repeat blending process again with 2 additional cups of filtered water and strain as you did before. Discard pulp.

Now you can flavor it up a bit. Combine the strained 2 batches of milk back into the rinsed out blender. You should now have about 5 1/2 - 6 cups of strained almond milk. Blend in on medium for about 1 minute any of the flavor combos above or you can get creative. Let me know what you come up with!

Enjoy!

#paleo #refinedsugarfree #dairyfree #glutenfree #Almonds #vegan #Vitamix #vitamix