Making Almond Milk

Fresh almond milk is delicious! I recently discovered my love for it when I experimented with a raw foods diet. The raw foods didn't last long (it became too hard to plan and prepare food), but there are a few things I learned that I'll be keeping around.

When you make your almond milk make sure you're using the right almonds. I've been using packages of almonds found in the baking aisle of my grocery store. They're just the typical Diamond brand of plain shelled almonds and they work just fine. Don't use dry roasted or salted nuts. It won't make good milk. I tried it just out of curiosity. It's grainy and not nearly as tasty.

I use a juicer for the final step in making almond milk. It is possible to finish without a juicer, but you'll need a nut milk bag. I've never tried it this way, but it seem more tedious and I've heard it can get messy.


Ingredients

• 1.25 cups almonds
• 4.5 cups water (plus water for soaking)
• Agave nectar (optional)
• Vanilla extract (optional)
• Salt (optional)

Tools

• Bowl
• Colander
• Blender
• Juicer
• Ladle or large spoon

Step 1: Soak almonds 24 hours
Place the almonds in a bowl and fill with water, just enough to cover the almonds. The bowl doesn't need to be completely full. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for 24 hours. I've let the almonds go a few hours more or less, but get as close to 24 hours of soaking as you can. I've found that letting it go for the full 24 hours makes the resulting almond milk smoother.

Soaked almonds

Step 2: Drain and rinse
You don't want to use the water the almonds have been soaking in, so put a colander in the sink and dump the almonds in. Rinse with some fresh water.

Almonds & water ready to blend

Step 3: Blend
Place the soaked almonds and *3 cups of water in the blender and blend for about 30 seconds.
Pour into a large bowl and add another 1.5 cups water. Stir in.
*If your blender fits all the water you can blend all with the almonds. I find that my blender is too full with the 1.5 cups almonds and 4.5 cups water, so I simply add the extra water in after I do the blending.

Step 4: Juice
Use a ladle to spoon the almond mix into the juicer. The "juice" that comes out is your yummy almond milk! Once you've finished juicing you can add flavoring to your almond milk if you'd like. I add a dash of salt, about 1/4 tsp vanilla extract, and maybe a teaspoon or two of agave nectar. You can either stir the flavorings in or put it all back in the blender to make sure it's well mixed it.

Step 5: Store it
I generally get 5.5 cups of almond milk from this recipe. I store it in a half gallon mason jar in the fridge. It keeps for a few days. Generally I finish it within 3 days.

Almond milk will separate. Just shake it up.

Step 6: Use it!
My favorite way to use almond milk is to blend 8 ounces with half a frozen banana. Delicious!