How to make creamy oat milk and nut milk at home.

Photo shows me holding a bottle of homemade plant milk

Making your plant milk at home is easy, uses less packaging, and in many cases works out much cheaper as well (definitely the oat milk). What are you waiting for?

OAT MILK:

1 cup oats

4 cups water

2 dates ( or alternative sweetener such as maple syrup or vanilla essence). This is optional.

4-5tsp oil ( I used rapeseed)

Pinch salt ( optional)

1/4 to 1/2 tsp xanthan gum

Blender

2 sieves

METHOD

1.Soak the oats and the dates ( if using) in the 4 cups of water for 20 mins.

2. Add other ingredients apart from the xanthan gum. No need to drain or rinse the oats first .

3. Blend

4. Set one sieve above the other over a bowl and pour the mix through. TIP: Don’t press it through or use a nut milk bag as this can make the milk turn out slimy – and it is really hard to get through a nut milk bag. Just tilt the sieve to get the milk through.

5. Return the milk to the blender, add the xanthan gum and blend again. The xanthan gum helps the mix stay together but it does give a thicker texture so you will need to adjust to taste. It’s best to start with a smaller amount and then add a bit more to see how you prefer it.

6. Pour into your preferred container and refrigerate. Although the xanthan gum helps stop separation you may want to still give the bottle a gentle shake before using.

NUT MILK

Nut milk is even simpler.

1 cup nuts ( I usually use a mix of almonds and hazelnuts but you can also use other nuts or seeds such as pumpkin seeds)

4-5 cups water

Blender

Nut milk bag

METHOD

1. Soak the nuts in enough hot water to cover (from the kettle) for an hour (or more).
2. Drain and rinse
3. Add fresh water
4. Blend
5. Strain through a nut milk bag, muslin or other fine weave cloth. This time you can squeeze to get as much liquid as you can out.
6. Pour into your preferred container and refrigerate.

OAT AND NUT MILK

My plant milk of choice at the moment is a mix of oat and nut milk. Because the oat milk is best filtered through a sieve and the nut milk though a nut milk bag I find it easiest to make a half batch of each and then mix them together in a bottle at the end. In this case, because of the fat from the nuts there is no need to add the oil or the xanthan gum, although a tiny bit of xanthan gum at the end does reduce the settling of the oats. I keep it super simple and just blend oats with water after the 20 mins soaking time, then sieve. I don’t find the dates or other additions to be necessary. Then I make the nut milk exactly as above and mix the 2 together.

Because the sieve allows small particles of the oats through you will need to shake it before use as the small bits settle to the bottom. If there is a lot of sediment when I’m nearing the bottom of the bottle I often add more water and give it a good shake again to make it last a bit longer.

WHAT TO DO WITH THE OAT AND NUT PULP

After making these you will be left with a small amount of oat pulp and rather more nut pulp. Don’t throw this away as it can be used up in many recipes – I often share how I use it over in my instagram account. Some of my favourites are in homemade granola, in bread, cookies and cake. Treading my own Path blog has a great recipe for vegan chocolate brownies using nut pulp. The oat pulp can easily be added to porridge. You can add some nut pulp in place of tahini and I have tried fermenting it to make vegan cheese before.

Do let me know how you get on if you give this a try – and if you have other ideas for using the nut/oat pulp.

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