DIY non-dairy milk recipe's; Coconutmilk/Almondmilk/Ricemilk/Oatmilk etc ~ Recepten Kokosmelk/Rijstmelk/Amandelmelk/Havermelk etc

How to make your own delicious ricemilk / coconutmilk / almondmilk and other lactose-free, plant based milks.


After discovering how to make my own creamy and fresh plant based milk, I hardly buy any prefab milk-alternatives anymore. The recipe's are really easy and one of the best things about making your own lactose-free and 100% natural plant-based milk, is that you can MIX and MATCH the ingredients to your own preferred taste! :D


Why make your own milk alternatives?

Now I'm not going to say that I am 'against' any mass-produced milk alternatives, I think they are a great invention and have been using them forever now it seems. (I quit consuming cow-milk products completely a few years ago) of course now and then I still buy a prefab milk-alternative (my fav's are unsweetened almond and hemp milk) out of convience. But if I can find the time to make my own - I deffinately prefer to do that :D Most of all I think the magic is to keep it all fun and play with the options that you have; try making your own, if you don't like it try another one, mix the flavours, buy a carton again, taste the difference and just find out what works best for you :) Drinking any plant based substitute other than those mass-produced dairy industry milks is already such a huge step ahead for our environment and your health! Or if you get your raw-milk at a local farm every once in a while where cows, goats or sheep are being fed what they are supposed to eat; big fat YAY for that as well ;) But for those who do not have acces to raw milk or if you feel those store-bought milk alternatives are just too expensive or if you just want to avoid all those added sweeteners in them - there might be some nice recipe's for you right here :)

These home-made vegan-milk-recipe's are simple and a healthy addition to your vegetarian/vegan or rawfood diet and of course lacking all those additives that are in the pasteurized storebought versions. Also you can save out some money - at least here in the Netherlands any milk alternative (and certainly when it is organic) will often cost you around and about 3 euro's (+/- 4,- US dollar) or more per litre (2 US pint), while making them yourself will cost you between 0,05 to 0,50 cents per litre :) and for the Dutch; just knowing that, is fun too ;)

The single downside is that these home-made milks do not last as long as storebought milks - and you will have to consume these milks probably within 3 days. But then again; they are so delicious that the chances of this becoming a problem are rare ;) If you already were a small vegan-milk-consumer to begin with; you can just make a smaller amount to be able finish it all during that period of time, and no more :) I use approxemately 800 ml (a little less than a litre) on my own in 3 days, using it for in my breakfast and in smoothies and chai-tea's during the day. If you like to learn more about store bought milk and soy milk and such, keep on reading after the recipe's - there is a lot more to tell on this topic ;) but if youre just here for the recipe; here we go!! :D

Home made plant-based milk recipe:

There are 2 kinds of plant-based-milk that you can make yourself at home; the ones that include cooking, and the ones that don't. 

In either case the ingredients need to be soaked in water a few hours (best overnight) before you start making milk out of them, so that gives you an idea of how much time is involved.

Ingredients:

For NON-cooking (RAW) milks you need 1 cup of

-  dried nuts (the nuts obviously need to be peeled out of their shells first hahaha)
-  coconut (-pre grinded or the fresh meat, cut in smaller pieces - these you do not have to  pre-soak :)
-  seeds (with hemp - use peeled hempseeds)
-  grains IF the grains have been processed already -  so in other words if they have already been turned into flakes or otherwise pounded, grinded or destrooooooyed (hahaha) so you can eat them right away without breaking any teeth on them ;)

For cooking milks you need 1 cup of

- rice
- unprocessed grains (like whole raw oats/wheat etc, so the ones that still take an hour of chewing before you can swallow)
- beans (like soy) 

* Naturally you can mix and match - so half a cup of one ingredient and half a cup of the other is possible, just make sure you keep the cooking and raw-ingredients seperated, it would be ashame if you ended cooking your delicious raw-almonds ;)

* Obviously the 'whole' and unprocessed ingredients contain the highest amount of healthy minerals (so brown rice for instance is better then white and whole almonds are better than almond flakes).

How to make your milk: 

(after soaking; raw milks take +/- 10 min to prepare - cooking milks obviously take longer)


1) 

Take your one cup of whatever you are using (or a mix of ingredients) and soak in a bowl overnight or for at least 4 hours adding 1 cup of water (so everything is covered). 

Optionally you can add a tea-spoon of lemonjuice or Apple Cider Vinegar to help break down the nuts and grains 'protection layer' of phytic acid. For the food-nerds amongst us: Researchers have found that if you can reduce the phytic acid in your food, you can improve your iron absorption markedly, up to 12 times! (link to more info about this).
 
2)

After soaking is done, throw out the water & rinse your ingredient(s) for a second under cold water, using a normal strainer. If you used raw, whole almonds it should be easy now to peel the thin brown layer off by just squeezing them diagonally between your fingers - the almond will amost 'shoot' out of its skin if done correctley and soaked long enough. I personally always remove all of these skins - but it isn't a rule or something you have to do - so if you are in a hurry, just don't ;)

3)

Now if you choose a cooking ingredient put it in a pan with 4 cups of water and boil untill ready to eat. Do not throw out the water after cooking - instead re-add the amount of water that 'flew off' in steam during cooking and then after it all cooled down poor into blender or use a stickmixer and blend untill white and smooth. (note: blending super-hot stuff is NOT advicable) ;)

If you choose a non-cooking ingredient  put in a blender or use a stickmixer right away plus 4 cups of water and blend untill white and smooth.

4) 

Now you COULD already drink it and use it just like that :D
But to get ourselves a reaaaally nice clean milk we want to strain it just once more, so all those little bits and pieces of blended rice/oats/nuts/whatever will be removed from the milk.

I like to use a cheesecloth for this (super cheap at any textile-store or market - in Amsterdam: E3,- per meter on the Albert Cuyp market) but you can also use a thin towl, a stocking, or an piece of sheet cut up for the purpose of your nut-milk-straining :)

Just take the piece of cloth you are using and use a rubber band or 2/3 to attach it to a pan or bowl - big enough to hold all the milk - with a little ridge (so the rubber band can be below it):

After attaching the cloth on top of the pan - carefully push the centre of the cloth down a little bit (about an inch) and then slowly start pooring in your milk from the blender.

 

The cloth can only 'take' about a quarter of the milk at once - so be patient and just wait untill the milk has been strained / poored through all the way - before you poor in the next bit. I often do two things at the same time and will be walking away and back to this process, but it can also be fun to just watch this process while you're at it, and turn it into a fun jut-being-here-and-now-ZEN-ish experience while listening to the milk dripping down from the bottom of the cloth and into the pan :)

After repeating the pooring 3 to 4 times, all milk will be strained and inside the pan. Now the stuff left in the cloth is perfect to be used later on as a gluten-free flour for baking cookies or in other recipies, so you can keep this :) Use a clean spoon to scrape it all together in the centre and carefully press on top of it a few times more so all the left over milk will come out.

After straining the milk, all the bigger parts that were in the milk will leave a creamy substance on top of the cheese-cloth.

After 'pressing' out all the milk of this substance - you are left with a 'clean' almond-rice-seed-or oat-flour which you can use again for baking cookies or in another recipe :)

Tip: You can 'safe up' all these bits of home made flour' in a jar in the freezer, every time you make your own milk, untill it is full and then defreeze it to bake cookies from it :)

Home made almond-coconut milk and left over almond-coconut-flour.

5)  Optionally as a sweetener or just for some extra flavour you can add one or more of these ingredients:

- a medjool dade (remove the stone first)
- a teaspoon of maple sirop
- a tablespoon of organic coconut blossom sugar
- a pinch of cinnamon
- a pinch of Celtic or Himalayan salt
- a drop of vanilla extract

and for more creamyness you can add either:

- a tablespoon of coconut oil
- a tablespoon of avocado oil
- or a tablespoon of melted ghee

If you choose to add any of these - blend the milk one more time after adding it.

6)

Finally; poor your home-made milk from your pan/bowl or blender - using a funnel - into a clean glass bottle and you can enjoy it for +/- 3 days (keep refigurated) in all your favorite milk-recipies :)

THE END!!  :D (of the recipe ;))

The milk in the pictures is a mix of 1/2 almonds and 1/5 coconut (grinded). Before blending I pre-soaked only the almonds overnight and after soaking I removed the almonds skins.
I sometimes add a tiny bit of maplesirop to the final result, but not too much as I personally really like the natural flavor of this mix already :)

After a day in the fridge some thicker 'cream' collecting on top on the (coco)nut-milks is normal :)

Also if the milk looks 'flaky' after pooring into your coffee or tea; DON'T worry this can happen, plant-based milks often do not 'merge' as smoothly in hot drinks as animal-based milks do, this is nothing to worry about :)


This particulair coconut/almond milk is DELICIOUS in a cup of home made super-healthy tumeric chai tea!!! 

So that will be my next blog post! ;) Stay tuned!!

More back ground info on milk-alternatives :) 




Nowadays organic stores offer a variety of plant-based milks. Next to the more 'common' (by now) rice and soy drink, you will find spelt drink, hemp drink, oats drink, almond, hazelnut drink and many others, but what are the main differences and how do you know which one to choose? 

Soymilk: The best known replacement by far is soy. A huge hype surrounding soy milk took place a few years ago; half our western (vegetarian or lactose-intolerant) world massively swiched from drinking about half a liter of cow to a gallon of soy per day. This hype was being fed by beautifull stories of radiant Japanese people who had been doing the same thing for thousands of years and look at how healthy they are today! Too bad that story isn't as close to the thruth as we might wish it to be. Japanese do not eat that much soy traditionally. And certainly not in the way the westenr industry deals with it.
Apparantly there are quite a few disadvantages to soy. Those disadvantages mainly show up if you use the bean in a non-naturally-processed form, so; directely 'as that is' after harvesting. The Japanese know this- and so they do not use it in that way. Originally in Japan mainly naturally fermented soy is being eaten, known by us as tempeh,Tamari, kikkoman, shoyu, and other preparations. Not as gallons of soy milk and pounds of tofu the way we created it. But we did anyway, because it was so delicious, high in protein, and minor details; cheap, easy to genetically manipulate and fast to grow. This way we use soy (-milk and soya-products like burgers and tofu) is hard for our bodies to break down and actually costs us minerals during the digestion of it. In that way when eaten on a daily base for a longer period of time it can actually cause one to have a lack of minerals. Nothing to freak out about right away - of course we can totally handle a glass of soy milk or a (organic, non gmo) soy-burger once in a while, but if you've been eating and drinking it a few times per day, you might want to read into this some more (the relationship between soy and mineral defficiency) and see if you can ad some other alternatives to your veggie diet as well, just to give your intestants a 'breaking-down-soy-break' now and then ;)

Generally nutmilks contain more protein than rice milk. And just as with soya and rice, these plant-based drinks don't always match up with the recipe's which our (grand)parents recipe's are based on, or with the flavour of milk that we might have been brought up with: those of cow's milk. As is the case with many a meat or dairy substitute; anything produced in mass-industry will often have been edited and warped until something comes out that comes as close as possible to what it is they are trying to 'replace' (in this case cows-milk). 

In order to make all of these plant based milk alternatives creamier, often some (sunflower) oil is being added, and to make it more rich, calcium is thrown into the mix, and then a little (organic cane) sugar is added to make it tastier. Of course the complete mixture has been brought to a boil at some point, so the product can be kept well over a year (if left unopened) on the shelf. Yes, they are often tasty and still pretty good milk-replacers, nevertheless when I buy them I just look for the ones that are unsweetened and with as little additives as possible.

Still you can only come to the conclusion (sorry my dear lazy co-creators) that you just haven't tasted a pure and 100% organic raw-nutmilk untill you've had (or made yourself) a home-made one... ;) So hook up with those health-freak-friends and make sure you're being invited to their house and let them make you one, or if you're up to it; try one of the above recipe's yourself :) 


Have fun with this ~ and if you happen to know any great tips of recipe's for home made milks yourself please share below :)) !!





Love yourself - each other - and our planet :)

((( <3 )))


Wieteke