I've been making my own almond milk for about five years now. My husband and son are lactose intolerant, so we are always looking for alternatives to dairy milk. Soy milk is also problematic for them, so I got in to making almond milk and haven't looked back. We mostly use it for making chia seed pudding and golden milk in the winter, but you can use it in anything you would use cow's milk in.
Not only is almond milk easy to make at home, it's also a lot more cost effective and healthy than the store-bought versions. The almond milk you find in the shops usually contains added sweeteners, emulsifiers and preservatives. I much prefer to make mine at home and know that I'm creating a wholefood, which is low in sugar and free from other additives that our body does not recognise as real food.
When I first came across the possibility of making my own almond milk I was a little overwhelmed, it seemed like too much to ask for from an already busy schedule. Surprisingly, it turned out really do-able and I haven't looked back.
Almond milk
Ingredients
1 cup of almond, soaked overnight or for at least 8 hours
1 L water
1) Drain the almonds.
At this stage you can add the optional step of blanching your almonds in boiling water for one minute, draining and rinsing them and slipping off the skins. I prefer to do it like this, however you can continue on with soaked and drained almonds that have not been blanched.
2) Add 1 litre of water to a blender and add the almonds. Blend on high until the almonds have been finely ground. I have a Vitamix and this takes approximately 30 seconds.
3) Pour the liquid through a nut milk bag, cheese cloth or even a clean old t-shirt* in to a jug. Discard the pulp.
The almond milk will keep, refrigerated, for 2-3 days.
*This is how I made my first few batched of almond milk, no joke. I didn't want to invest in a nut milk bag until I had tried making almond milk and knew that my family would use it. After seeing it was a success, I went out and bought a nut milk bag. Although the t-shirt does the job fine, it's much harder to clean afterwards. The nut milk bag is super easy to rinse, and dries quickly and can be folded up small for easy storage.