8 tips for making homemade plant milk

Ready to make your own plant milk at home? In this post I share with you my tips for making homemade plant milk, including tips and tricks for making it taste great, how to streamline the process, and storing it in the fridge.

Here’s my tips for making plant milk at home:

Grind nuts or seeds first, before adding water

One of the biggest tips I can share with you about making your own plant milk at home is to grind the nuts and seeds first in your blender before adding the water. This makes it easier to thoroughly blend the milk and avoid ending up with large chunks of nuts and seeds in your milk.

Additionally, if you do not have a high powered blender, before adding all of the water to the blender add just enough to cover the nuts or seeds. Blend this first, then add the remaining water. This helps make sure your milk is thoroughly blended as well.

Alternatively, instead of grinding the nuts or seeds yourself, simply use a nut or seed butter that is already ground up, such as almond butter or cashew butter. If using this, I use about 1 teaspoon nut or seed butter to 1 cup water. Or, use a nut meal or flour, such as almond flour or hazelnut flour. If using flour, use about 1 tablespoon per cup of water.

Add sunflower lecithin

This ingredient helps emulsify your plant milk, which means that it helps the fat and water in your milk combine to create a smooth consistency that doesn’t separate easily. I add about 1 teaspoon to four cups of plant milk.

NOW sunflower lecithin: My secret ingredient for making creamy plant milk at home

Get a nut milk bag

Some nuts have skins on them, such as almonds and brazil nuts. If using these to make your own plant milk I recommend straining the milk through a mesh bag as you are pouring it into your storage container. You can purchase an actual nut milk bag, or instead purchase a very inexpensive “paint straining bag” at your local hardware store (like I do). These are often $1 or $2 and last a very long time with proper washing. If you end up with a lot of extra pulp (which often happens with almond milk), the pulp can be reused to make cookies or other baked goods.

Use a high-powered blender if possible

I use a Vitamix blender which I’ve found makes the best plant milk because it is very high powered. These can be found on ebay.com where they sell new and used blenders.

Where to buy a used Vitamix blender online and save $100

Add making your own plant milk to your meal prep routine

I make plant milk at home about 2-3x per week and store it in a large glass mason jar in the fridge. It is really easy to make, basically just combine nuts and/or seeds, sunflower lecithin and water into a blender and blend until creamy. To make it even easier, I avoid using nuts that need straining to save me an extra step. I’ve found the quickest and easiest type of plant milk to make is cashew milk.

Store your milk in a glass jar in the fridge

I prefer to store all of my food in glass instead of plastic because I’m wary of the chemicals that are found in plastic containers. I’ve also found that it is very easy and space efficient to use glass mason jars to store my plant milk in the fridge.

Make a nut milk mix

If you really want to streamline your plant milk making process you can make an easy-to-use mix by combining ground nuts and/or seeds with sunflower lecithin in a container. When you’re ready to make milk simply scoop the mix into a blender, add water, and blend. Homemade plant milk generally lasts about 2-4 days before going bad in my refrigerator.

Make your milk unsweetened for versatility

When I’m making my homemade plant milk I generally will make it plain and unsweetened. This allows me versatility for using the milk in both sweet and savory dishes. I’ll never forget the time I tried to make a savory vegan garlic Alfredo sauce with sweetened vanilla plant milk because it turned out to be a very inedible dish. If you have plain milk in the fridge you can always blend up the milk with your favorite sweetener and flavorings anytime.

Here’s a quick and easy recipe for making plant milk at home

Sincerely,

Chef Veronica

8 tips for making homemade plant milk