Dairy-Free Plant-Based Milk Recipes

One time I soaked oats in water and drained the water from the oats hours later and called it plant-based milk…. It was gross and mostly like discolored water. Aaaaand I insisted to Griffin that is, indeed, how you make oat milk.

Bahaha now that I’ve unnecessarily confessed my embarrassing mistakes to you folks let me tell you how to actually make plant milk. It takes way less than “hours” and turns out way better than discolored water. I mean, it’s even better than store bought plant-based milk.

The many reasons homemade plant-based milk is way better than store-bought:

1. No preservatives, “extra” ingredients, artificial sweeteners, questionable “I-don’t-even-know-how-to-pronounce-this” ingredients, etc.
2. For the price of one container of store bought milk, you can make dozens of batches of homemade plant-based milk.
3. You can save the WORLD…. from so many plastic milk bottles being wasted!
4. You’ll never have to make a trip to the store for milk because you NEED it for a recipe… You’ll just have it whipped up in 5 minutes.
5. You can make your own flavors without sacrificing your health (blueberry, strawberry, chocolate, sweetened, vanilla).
6. Your recipe can be tailored to meet allergy and dietary restrictions.
7. There’s a plant-based milk recipe for every budget.

The many “base” potentials of homemade plant-based milk:

1. Hemp (my favorite)
2. Cashews, almonds, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, etc. but these are some of the best flavors!
3. Oats
4. Coconut
5. Rice
6. Flax
7. Banana
8. Quinoa

Soy beans are a good option for flavor too, but I’ve never made it myself and I’ve heard it’s a more extensive process- not one that will work in this recipe!

The trick:

Blend 1 cup of any base ingredient listed above with 3 cups of water in a high-speed blender. That’s it! For a higher quality milk, strain through scrapped cloth, cheesecloth or invest in a nut milk filter (I just upgraded to this from cheesecloth and I can highly recommend).  To make a cream/thicker milk, use less water. Makes a great soup base, coffee creamer, baking ingredient, gravy, etc. Use it just as you would any other milk. Obviously banana, coconut, and similar milks are going to be sweeter and nut and oat milk will be more neutral. The rest will have a flavor you’ll just have to play around with and see what you like! I looove using hemp milk in my coffee, you can check out a great latte recipe here!