The Simple Yet Complete Guide To Making Plant-Based Milks — This Green Lifestyle

I won’t waste your time here by giving you tons of background about plant-based milk. If you’re looking to learn more about it or its potential health benefits, you can click here.

Plant-based milk is incredibly healthy and delicious. Even if you consume dairy, there’s no reason you can’t also enjoy plant milks, especially because there are so many different kinds to try with different flavors, nutrients, and more!

Unfortunately, plant milks can run pricey compared to its dairy alternatives. Fun fact: this is largely because the government has been bailing out the dairy industry for decades through immense subsidies and buying out excess milk which it then stores as cheese. Does this remind anyone of the 2008 bank bailouts? 

Luckily, you don’t need a large amount of nuts, seeds, or grains to make a large batch of plant milk, so making your own can actually be less expensive than buying from the store. By making your own fresh at home, you’re also cutting out a huge amount of waste from all of the milk cartons and plastic bottles. Find a nice glass bottle, or even just some simple jars, and you never have to worry about throwing a milk jug out again!

Finally, making your own plant milks is great because it gives you a chance to experiment with many different ingredients and flavors. You get to control exactly what’s going inside, which means more confidence about what you’re putting into your body, and more health benefits (because there’s none of those added sugars and “stabilizing” chemicals—whatever those might be).

So let’s just get right down to it!

The basics: what you’ll need

Not only is plant milk quick and easy to make (sometimes as little as 5 minutes!), you don’t need a lot, and chances are you’ll already have nearly everything you need at home.

The equipment

There’s a few different ways to make plant milks. You can even buy products designed specifically for this purpose. But before you invest in expensive equipment that you may not even need or want, I suggest using what you probably already have on hand.

  • A blender

  • Cheesecloth or a fine mesh strainer 

The ingredients

  • One part nut, grain, or seed of choice (we’ll get into this more below)

  • Four parts water

The optional stuff

  • Sweetener (such as: a couple dates)

  • Vanilla extract

  • Other flavors such as: cinnamon, cocoa powder, etc.

The basics: how to milk this stuff

As you can already see, there’s not a whole lot to making milk from seeds and nuts. The cool thing is, although most stores only carry a handful of plant-based milks (usually soy, almond, oat, and maybe a few others if you’re lucky), you can make dozens (yes, dozens!) of different kinds of milks at home once you know the basics.

Which nuts or seeds should you use?

Which kind of plant milk you’ll make is entirely up to you and your preference in terms of texture and flavor. Although you may already have an idea of your preferences based on store-bought plant milks, you’ll have to experiment a bit in the kitchen to find exactly what you like. 

Personally, I prefer homemade cashew milk over almond milk because it requires less work to make (takes me about 5 minutes in total), but sometimes it’s worth it to make almond milk instead if you’re looking for that unique and delicious flavor. Additionally, oat milk, when made right, is refreshing and versatile. Hemp, pistachio, and rice milk are also fun alternatives to try out.

Although there are many nuts and seeds from which to make milk, here are my top 13:

  • Almond

  • Cashew

  • Pistachio

  • Macadamia

  • Hazelnut

  • Oat

  • Soy

  • Coconut

  • Rice

  • Hemp

  • Spelt

  • Pea

  • Flax