Non-dairy Milks- Nut, Seed, Grain

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I’m not new to non-dairy milk. Prior to 2005 my family used to consume a lot of soymilk. At the time I’d never tried any other non-dairy milk. I can’t really do soymilk any longer but dairy milk makes me wish I hadn’t consumed it either. Reading through Trim Healthy Mama, they briefly mention making almond milk at home because some of their recipes call for it. They also mention coconut milk; that’s the next one I want. Anyway, I decided to make my own nut milk.

So far I’ve made brown rice milk, almond milk, almond/pecan/walnut milk (so far my favorite), oat/flax milk, and today quinoa milk. I have consumed dairy milk on possibly 2 instances this entire week and wouldn’t ya know, I’ve not had a ‘fat’ belly all week. Not to say I’ve lost weight but thankfully the discomfort from dairy hasn’t been present. {side note: I’ve also only had ‘wheat’ twice this week…hmmm}

I know there are many posts already online about making non-dairy milk at home but here comes another one. It will be long on words, short on photos. With just about all of these, the process is the same. There are variances of course but basically it’s all the same. I don’t know all the nutritional ins and outs of cooking versus not cooking grains and seeds so of course, what I say here, is just simply what I did. It doesn’t in any way constitute the best or healthiest way to do it.

Let’s start with the nut milks. In Trim Healthy Mama, they say it is best to soak the nuts before using them. I am guessing, since I don’t have the book right in front of me and don’t want to look it up online, you can of course if you want, that soaking releases either unwanted or wanted elements from the nuts. Many places say to soak then dump out the soak water and use clean water. Here’s my experience:

My first nut milk was a mix of almonds, pecans and walnuts. Some were chopped, some slivered and some whole. I grabbed a nice handful of the mix and put it in a quart jar, covered the nuts with water to about an inch above. Sealed the jar and put in the fridge. I actually forgot about the nuts for two days. By that time, the water had taken on a milky look. I decided to not strain out the water and blend it in. I also added enough water to make almost 2 quarts. I use an Oster blender that is many years old. It is one for making smoothies so I figured it would work well for this job. I mixed it until it looked like all was blended well.

Then I used a ‘tea towel’ (sorry, I’ve really no idea if that is what it is called; it is a tight weave hand towel) in a pasta strainer to strain the milk. To keep mess to minimum, I used a large mixing bowl to catch the milk. Every so often I would gather the edges of the towel and twist the milk out of the blended nuts. I squeezed until my hands hurt! I’m just not used to this kind of work lol. My milk was perfect looking!

The pulp I scraped off the towel and placed in a small glass bowl with a lid and put in the fridge. Honestly, I didn’t use it and threw it out but it could have been used in baking, I’m sure.

Unfortunately, I did not get a photo of my first milk. This has been by far my favorite milk. I wish I had more of it. It didn’t separate, was mild but tasty and worked wonderful in my coffee (with a touch of stevia, it reminded me of a very mild hazelnut creamer). The only thing I didn’t really like was the slight bitter taste that I attribute to the walnuts. It was very slight though.

Getting into this ‘milk’ making, I decided to venture out to rice milk. We have two huge bags of white rice and quite a few smaller bags of brown rice. Since white rice isn’t so healthy, I decided to make brown rice milk. Granted, I’m aware the glycemic index is rather high with brown rice (rice in general?). I still made it. I found this recipe and decided to follow it for the most part.

For this, I soaked the rice in the fridge in the same manner as the nuts. Instead of 1 cup like many recipes called for, I opted for 1/2 cup. I also left it for two days, since it worked so well with the nuts. In hindsight, I don’t think it really matters; the rice is cooked to a mush.

Some recipes don’t even call for straining it. I did, however, because my blender doesn’t break it down as much as I’d like it to be.

For 1/2 cup soaked brown rice, I cooked it in 4 cups of water for 3 hours. It was mush. I let it cool for awhile and then proceeded to blend much like for the nut milk. I strained it the same way. Here is my finished brown rice milk.

It is very bland tasting. It does separate a bit.

Since I liked the nut milk so much I decided to make more. But this time I could only get almonds so I made almond milk. They were whole (a good size handful) and soaked for two days in the fridge. I did it the same as before; didn’t drain the water. This wasn’t as good as my first nut milk. The taste is fine, if perhaps just a little too much like the skin of the almond. And it separates. It is quite easy to use, though; just give it a shake.

I really don’t like the taste of either the rice or the almond milk so I mixed a little of the two together. I won’t say I think it improves the taste at all but doesn’t make it any worse.

Back to ‘grain’ milks –next I went with oat…and flax. Now, neither of these did I follow a recipe. Honestly, I didn’t even think of looking up how others have done it. Yeah, that’s how confident I’ve become in my milk making. LOL not really; I just don’t follow recipes well anyway. And as I mentioned earlier, the process is basically the same. I don’t think it matters if you cook the oats beforehand. It might be a bit like the rice if you do –cook it to mush and then blend. If I were to cook it first, I’m not sure I’d strain it. It’d depend on how well it blended.

For the oat/flax mix, I had fully intended to just do oat but decided in the end to make them together. Partially because I had small amounts of both soaking. Kill two birds with one stone. Er, make two milks at once, more like. I realize that one is a grain and one a seed but they seem to fall under the ‘whole grain’ category so often. I had old fashioned oats from Aldi and Bob’s Red Mill ground flax (not golden; it’s quite dark). These were soaked, separately, for two days in the fridge. Both of them fairly absorbed the water they were soaked in so there wasn’t any to drain anyway. Altogether, there was about 3/4 cup oat/flax and enough water to make just under 2 quarts.

The same procedure as before: blend with water very well, strain through tight weave cloth. Here is what it looks like in the fridge.

It is thick and somewhat…slimy. It also has sediment at the bottom that is difficult to shake back in. It must be shaken vigorously. Taste-wise, other than the first nut milk, this may be my second favorite.

I did find this recipe after making my own –quite easy and close to what I did, minus of course the coconut, but wouldn’t that be yummy! And here is one for the flax milk; I love the pantyhose idea!

And the last milk I’ve made is quinoa milk. I used 1/2 cup. I first rinsed the seeds, then put in a small jar and covered with water to about an inch above. I let it soak two days (it just seems to work out that way), drained the soak water, then cooked them in 1.5 cups fresh water for 20 minutes. The germ had already spiraled out while soaking but the seeds were still white. When I measured the seeds before cooking, they’d swelled to about 3/4 cup.

While it was still somewhat warm, I blended it in two batches and added 1 cup water each time. I ended up not straining this –the only one I’ve not strained –because of how well it blended. I can see bits of the quinoa in the milk but when I taste it, I can’t feel them. It is a thick milk. I split it between two quart jars but it actually only made just over 1 quart. In one jar I added 1 cup water but none in the other. I want to see if it separates more after water is added. 

This doesn’t taste like I thought it would. If you make quinoa you might notice the smell it gives off. To me, it’s an odd and not entirely appetizing odor. The taste isn’t like the smell. Perhaps it is just such a much more mild taste than the cooked quinoa, that I can’t really tell.

No one in my family really wants to try any of my milks. That is okay but they will anyway. I will use the milks in baking when I can. Really the only time that I personally drink regular milk is in my coffee. If I can find a suitable replacement, and one that I can make at home, I’ll be quite happy. And it will mean buying cow’s milk less often, in general. The oat/flax milk worked really well in biscuits I made earlier this week. I’m eager to try others.

I would like to find out how to make non-dairy yogurt from the milks I make. I was given a link to this site, where I’ve purchased a non-dairy yogurt starter. I will most likely start with almond milk yogurt.