Making your own almond milk or nut milk is so easy and worth it; no store-bought nut milk can compare to homemade. It certainly is convenient to purchase nut milk but in an effort to make almond milk look and taste good, many brands add ingredients to stabilize the milk so it doesn’t’ separate and often add things like potassium citrate, sunflower lecithin and gellan gum. Some brands even add carrageenan; an ingredient that can cause digestive issues, inflammatory bowel disease and other potentially harmful diseases that no one needs. Making your own only requires two ingredients; almonds (or cashews, brazil nuts, hazelnuts) and water. The left over almond pulp can be used for a body scrub or used to bake crackers or cookies to eliminate any wastefulness. I like to turn my pulp into a body scrub by adding jojoba oil and lavender essential oil.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of raw almonds (you can also substitute for cashews, brazil nuts or hazelnuts)
- 4 cups of cold water to soak the almonds overnight
- 5 cups of cold water to blend
Instructions:
1. Put the nuts and cold water in a container; preferably a large mason jar with a lid.
2. Let the nuts soak overnight – you can leave on the counter and don’t need to be refrigerated at this point.
3. Drain and rinse the almonds.
4. Transfer almonds to a blender and add 5 cups of cold water.
5. Blend for a minute.
6. Place a cheesecloth or nut bag over a bowl and carefully pour the milk into the bowl; gently squeezing the cloth or bag at the end.
7. Pour and store the milk in a glass jar and use within 5 days.
8. Use the remaining nut pulp for a body scrub. I’m also working on a cookie recipe for the almond pulp that I will share soon.
