Homemade almond milk

Almond milk is a favorite among the dairy free community, but store-bought almond milk is expensive, has a lot of unnecessary ingredients, is fortified with synthetic vitamins and minerals, and provides little nutritional value.

When I got pregnant unexpectedly with my 3^rd child, my 2^nd was only 7 months old. I tried to keep nursing her, but my milk dried up due to the pregnancy hormones. By the time she was 11 months old she was exclusively on my freezer stash of breast milk and by the times she was 13 months old she was exclusively on almond milk. I remember being surprised when I read the nutrition label. How could a serving of almonds be full of healthy fats and protein, but almond milk provided none of those. I later learned that almond milk is really just expensive water that has been fortified with synthetic junk.

 

What if I told you that you could make your own almond milk in less than 10 minutes for half the price, with none of the additives and preservatives, and you keep all of the nutritional benefits that almonds have to offer!

 

What you’ll need

• Blender
• Fine mesh strainer
• Purified water
• Pink Himalayan or Celtic Sea salt
• Organic blanched almond flour

 

Directions

1. Add ¼ cup of almond flour per 2 cups of water to your blender and let it sit for 2 minutes
2. Blend on high for 2 minutes then let it sit for another 2 minutes
3. Add a dash of salt and blend again for 2 minutes
4. Strain with a fine mesh stainless steel strainer

*Optional skip straining all together to retain 100% of the almonds

OR

*Strain with a cheese cloth for a smoother milk

 

Final notes

We use this milk exclusively for cooking and to give to our toddlers as they transition off breastmilk, so we choose not to strain it at all in order to retain all the nutritional value that almonds offer. It does come out pretty grainy, but our kids never seemed to care and for cooking it never seemed to matter. If you would like to use this milk for regular drinking, I would recommend straining it with the fine mesh strainer in order to retain as many nutrients as possible. If using a cheese cloth, while you will be left with a smoother milk it won’t have as many nutrients.

The shelf life for this milk is only 3-4 days. If we have a toddler drinking it regularly, we will make 8 cups at a time and it usually lasts 2 days. If we don’t have a toddler in the house, then we only make about 4 cups at a time.

It does well in the freezer so you can make up serval batches at a time to freeze for later.