A couple of times a week for the past few months I’ve been experimenting with making my own almond milk. The other week I tried adding some chai spices and it was beyond delicious – and surprisingly, SO good in coffee – I think that makes it a Dirty Chai?
Anyway, I’ll give you the basic almond milk recipe below along with the chai variation included.
I have a nut bag to strain the pulp and I highly recommend purchasing one if you’re going to be making almond milk on a regular basis. I bought mine in a local health food shop.
BONUS: I hated always being left with all the almond milk pulp afterwards but never sure what to do with it. There are many uses for almond milk pulp, but I made these almond pulp cookies (GF/egg free/paleo/refined sugar free) and am thrilled with the result. You can also use the pulp to bulk up your meatballs and curry sauces (though not if you’ve gone for the chai spice variation!).
Ingredients
1.5 cups almonds, soaked for overnight or for 6 hours
3 cups water
1 tspn vanilla essence
1/3 tspn salt
Chai Milk variation
1/2 tspn ginger
1 tspn cinnamon
a pinch cardamom (optional)
Method:
Once soaked, drain and rinse the almonds in a colander.
Pour the rinsed almonds into a food blender and add the water, salt, vanilla essence (and chai spices if you want a chai spiced milk).
Whiz on high until it looks very milky and the almonds are all whizzed up well – this should take a few minutes depending on your power of your blender (mine’s very weak).
Set the nut bag into a medium sized bowl. Pour the milky, almond mixture into the nut bag, tighten at the top and squeeze for a few minutes until you are left with a bowl of delicious chai spiced almond milk and a nut bag of dry almond pulp.
Pour your almond milk into a clean, glass bottle and store in the fridge where it will last for a few days (I find you can’t really big batch this recipe as the almond milk can go off and that’s an expensive waste!). I make this quantity a couple of times or more throughout the week.
Store your almond pulp in the fridge until you find a use for it. I have been making these cookies with my pulp. Also, as mentioned above, you can use the almond milk to bulk out savoury dishes too such as burgers, meatballs and curry sauces (again, only if you haven’t added the chai spices – that would make for some very curious tasting meatballs!).
Given this recipe a try? Have your own almond milk adventures to share? Share away in the comments below!
