Homemade Almond Milk: Round One

I’ve been wanting to make homemade nut milk for a while, but it seemed like it wouldn’t be cost effective since nuts are so expensive. I found a bunch of different recipes, some make homemade twice as much as store bought, and some would make it slightly less. I usually buy Almond Breeze because it uses non-gmo almonds. Silk used to, but they’ve since stopped.

Price Breakdown
The average price of Almond Breeze is $3.35 for 2 quarts, or 42 cents a cup. The ratios that I used priced out my homemade milk to $4.24 for 2 quarts, or 53 cents a cup. I’m fairly certain I can adjust the ratios so that the price is comparable, and I don’t think the taste would suffer at all.

The only thing is, I’m not sure that these almond (bulk from Wegman’s) are non-gmo. I’d guess they definitely aren’t. The raw organic ones are $12.99/lb which increases the price to $6.93/2 quarts. (Almond Breeze is non-gmo, but not organic.)

Nut Milk Bag
I was totally sure that Wegman’s would have nut milk bags since they have a huge natural/organic section, but I was wrong. I was googling them on the way home (as a passenger) and read a lot of suggestions to use paint strainer bags. I stopped at the Home Depot and got a two pack of nylon bags for $2.64, where most nut milk bags online at around $10. I’m not gunna lie, I was pretty skeptical to put food in these bags when I saw them at the store, but they seem to be plain nylon bags and identical to the fancy expensive ones.

I guess if I die, we can blame it on the bags. I’m thinking if I continue to make milk on a regular basis, I might splurge for a fancy organic hemp bag, but for testing purposes, I’m happy with what I bought.

Recipe
It really couldn’t be more simple. The only inconvenient thing is that you have to soak the almonds for at least 8 hours. I ended up soaking them for about 20 hours.

Equipment needed:

blender
nut milk bag, strainer, or cheese cloth

Ingredients:

1 cup raw almonds
4-6 cups filtered water + 2 cups for soaking
sweetener (optional)…I used 1 date that I soaked with the almonds and then a squirt of agave
other flavors, vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom, etc. (optional)

Instructions:

Cover the almonds in filtered water and soak for at least 8 hours. If using dates to sweeten, you can soak them too.

Drain the water, and add 4-6 cups of filtered water to your blender. Add almonds, sweetener, and flavorings, and blend.

Strain the almond milk and enjoy.

Check out the pictures down below.

.88 lbs of almonds cost $7.03 and gave me 2.5 cups of dry almonds.

I used one date that I soaked with the almonds, but I didn’t really taste the sweetness. I might add one or two more for vanilla milk.

I soaked 1 cup of almonds for about 20 hours.

One tip I read was to skin the almonds. While the skin does slip right off, I was not doing that for EACH almond. And I don’t think there really is any need to.

I used 4 cups of water for this recipe.

I blended it on medium and high speeds for a minute or two. It didn’t take very long.

I used 16oz mason jars (and a larger spaghetti sauce jar) because that’s what I had.

But it was a little difficult when I was straining the last bit.

Using 4 cups of water in the blender got me about 5-6 cups of milk. Next time I’m going to use more water to blend. I’ve noticed that when I use store bought almond milk in my coffee or chai tea, it barely lightens it, but with this, only using a splash makes it really, really light.

Just a splash in my chai tea.

I’ve saved and frozen the left over pulp, and I plan to either use it as almond meal in baking, or throw it in smoothies. I guess if you normally use almond meal, it would make the recipe even more cost effective.