Easiest Homemade Almond Milk Recipe
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This Homemade Almond Milk Recipe is going to rock your world, because it's literally the easiest recipe out there. No fuss and no mess, just easy almond milk. You'll see what I mean!
Making processed food substitutes can help you save a ton of money on your whole foods budget. And it doesn't have to take a bunch of time either.
I'm all about easy.
I make my own Homemade Chocolate Chips, Cream of Rice Cereal, Pumpkin Spice Creamer, and Homemade Ketchup.
All of those taste great, and are very simple to make.
But today I'm sharing with you the Easiest Almond Milk Recipe Ever. Seriously.
Why Is Almond Milk Popular?
- Dairy allergies are on the increase.
- Lactose intolerance is on the increase.
- People living a vegan lifestyle want alternatives to dairy for cooking, baking and drinking.
Why Make Your Own Homemade Almond Milk?
- The obvious – save money.
- Save time and money by not running out the store because you've run out of milk (or a dairy-free alternative). Every trip you don't make is money saved on gas, time saved, and less wear and tear on your car.
- Life a more sustainable lifestyle with less packaging and less waste. Even if they ever figure out a way to recycle those aseptic cartons, you can bet that it will be a super labor intensive.
Ever since my oldest was diagnosed with a life-threatening allergy to dairy (at 3 months of age), I've had to find ways to make allergy-free substitutes for drinking and for baking. But this method makes it super easy.
To be fair, this method won't match the super-creamy store-bought, aseptic packed almond milk you are used to. But it gets the job done lickety split. And it's pretty good.
Just yesterday both of my sons asked for some. They said it's not quite as good as my Homemade Coconut Milk, but good nonetheless.
How Much Can You Save?
Just so you can feel super good about yourself and your new frugal tip to help with your budget, here are the real numbers: Of course, this all depends upon where you buy it and your cost for almonds.
Almond Milk bought in bulk, buying 4 32 oz containers at Amazon, costs $2.43 for 4 cups.
Homemade Almond Milk (using a price of $4 per pound for almonds) costs $1.27 for 4 cups (plus your water cost, of course.) Savings: 48% That's not as amazing of a savings amount compared to my Homemade Coconut Milk, or Homemade Rice Milk, but saving almost 50% is nothing to sneeze at.
So there you have it – motivated to save time and money (and be environmentally conscious at the same time)? I hope so!
How to Store
Store this homemade almond milk in the fridge. It should keep for up to 3 or 4 days.
You could alternatively freeze it in cubes to use in your beverages or for making frozen treats in a high speed blender.
What to Do With Leftover Pulp
If you do choose to strain your almond milk, why waste all of that solid almond pulp goodess?
Good thing is, you don't have to!
You can dehydrate it in a dehydrator or an oven on low. Then pulse in food processor (or blender) to make into a finer powder.
The resulting almond meal can be tossed on cereals, put in smoothies or shakes, or used in most any recipe that calls for almond flour.
Recipes for Leftover Almond Pulp Turned to Almond Meal
Here are some great recipes to use your leftover pulp/meal in.
- Edible Cookie Dough – called “dangerously addictive” by a taste tester
- Healthy Green Bean Casserole – so much better than typical recipes
- Sugar-free Twix Bars – your childhood favorite made healthier
- Grain-free Meatballs – no bread or breadcrumbs needed!
- Eggnog Cookies – so tasty, they're absolutely not just for the Holidays
Recipe Notes
- Appearance: This recipe uses whole almonds. If you want your almond milk to be more uniform in appearance, you can use blanched almonds. Otherwise, you will have specks of the almond skins in the resulting milk.
- Stir and Serve: If you don't strain the milk (the way I typically don't), you can either stir the solids into the mix as you wish or use the solids for another purpose.
- Soak First: Some people make almond milk from soaked almonds, but I don't do that. I know it might sound counter-intuitive to dry the almonds before making milk, but I soak and dry a lot of nuts at a time. Then I store them and keep them on hand for snacking, making almond butter, or making this almond milk, or almond meal…you get the picture. This way I always have soaked nuts at the ready for making milk instead of having to time my soaking and milk making together.
- If you are doing a food plan like Trim Healthy Mama, a more acceptable proportion is 1/2 cup almonds per 4 cups of water. You can thicken the resultant milk with glucomannan if desired. This recipe is an “S” for THM.
- Notes about stevia: Stevia is very very sweet. You can read here for more information on how to use it. You can omit the sweetener or use another one as desired.
- Other milks: You can use this method for making other nut-based milk as well – I personally haven't made these (mainly since my son is allergic to all nuts except almond and macadamia, and macadamias are super pricey), but you could definitely try walnut, pecan, hazelnuts, or cashew milk.
- Sweetener options: You can substitute any other healthy sweetener for stevia. If using stevia, see How to Use Stevia.
- Flavoring options: For flavorings, chocolate or carob, as well as cinnamon, are great options, but the sky's the limit!
More Quick and Easy Pantry Staples
If you like saving money and easy recipes, you will love these other options.
- Powdered Sugar – works with any type of sweetener
- Powdered Egg Replacer – works in almost any recipe
- Homemade Vegetable Broth – doubles as an amazing all-purpose seasoning
- Homemade Coconut Butter – great for so many recipes and saves tons of money
Easiest Homemade Almond Milk Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup almonds
- 4 cups water
- 1/32 – 1/16 teaspoon stevia optional: see Recipe Notes for sweetener info.
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla optional; to taste
- dash salt
- other flavorings optional
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in a blender.
- Blend until smooth. In my Vitamix, I blend for approximately 2-3 minutes.
- Strain milk through cheesecloth or a natural unbleached coffee filter, if desired.
- Pour and enjoy.
Notes
- Appearance: This recipe uses whole almonds. If you want your almond milk to be more uniform in appearance, you can use blanched almonds. Otherwise, you will have specks of the almond skins in the resulting milk.
- Stir and Serve: If you don't strain the milk (I typically don't), you can either stir the solids into the mix as you wish or use the solids for another purpose.
- Soak First: Some people make almond milk from soaked almonds, but I don't do that. I know it might sound counter-intuitive to dry the almonds before making milk, but I soak and dry a lot of nuts at a time. Then I store them and keep them on hand for snacking, making almond butter, or making this almond milk, or almond meal. This way I always have soaked nuts at the ready for making milk instead of having to time my soaking and milk making together.
- If you are doing a food plan like Trim Healthy Mama, a more acceptable proportion is 1/2 cup almonds per 4 cups of water. You can thicken the resultant milk with glucomannan if desired. This recipe is an “S” for THM.
- Sweeteners. Stevia is very very sweet but you can omit the sweetener or use another one as desired.
- Other Milks: You can use this method for making walnut, pecan, hazelnut, or cashew milk.
- Sweetener Options: You can substitute any other healthy sweetener for stevia. If using stevia, see How to Use Stevia.
- Flavoring Options: For flavorings, chocolate or carob, as well as cinnamon, are great options, but the sky's the limit!
- To Strain or Not to Strain: I typically don't bother and just deal with the milk not being perfect. But it is a lot smoother that way so do whatever you like!
Nutrition
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. It may vary depending on ingredient brands, substitutions, and preparation methods. Optional ingredients are not included. Net carbs are typically calculated by subtracting fiber and sugar alcohols (such as erythritol) from total carbohydrates. This information should not be relied upon for medical or nutritional purposes.
What's your favorite way to use almond milk?
why on earth would you dehydrate the almonds after soaking? i’ve made almond milk for years. that just seems crazy. you should definitely change that! 🙂
Hey Alexis. I do it w/ all of my nuts so that I have them on hand for whatever I need them for. Then I grab them for snacking, making butter, making milk or making meal or flour. That way I don’t have to time my soaking around when I need milk – make sense :)?
I looked up the Just Almonds site and saw that there are several types of almonds to choose from. Which one do you recommend for making almond milk?
Thanks!
I use non pareil for everything. They are the sweetest.
This is a GREAT THM S drink. Thanks for linking at Trim Healthy Tuesday!
Hi Adrienne!
Do you peel your almonds? That is one thing that has always kept me from making my own almond milk. With 3 kids 4 and under, peeling seems like it would just be one.more.thing to do. Ha! Thanks!
Hi there! No, I never do. Not time for that. But my youngest sometimes likes to pull the skins off and eat them that way. There are some places where I’ve seen it written that it doesn’t take much time, but it sure does in my opinion. Try it and see what you think!
Our naturopath stated that store-bought almond milk uses almonds that were first washed in Benzine. We never bought almond milk again, but have made it since then.
Amazing how much damage we can do to our food before injesting it. 🙁
Gross.
I’ve found that I love my almond milk simple – almonds & water (though if I go with store-bought it has to be chocolate – I can’t stand the plain store-bought!). I do strain mine (twice, once through a fine mesh reusable produce bag and the second time through a metal coffee filter- I just don’t like a pulpy texture!). I then spread the pulp onto a stone or cookie sheet and put in the oven (lowest setting) to dry out – I’ll use my dehydrator next time – didn’t have it last time I made almond milk. I grind it up once it’s dry for ‘flour’. I made a really delicious cookie (adapted the classic Tollhouse recipe) using part almond flour and part all-purpose and subbing some of the butter with coconut oil – not a fluffy cookie, but very tasty!
I’d love to get that recipe – yum! If you’d be so kind to email it to me at wholenewmom at gmail I would be so grateful. Do you find it to be hard to wash the produce bag?
I would love to figure out the nutritional info, but, not sure how. I do use a nut bag so I can dehydrate the solids for almond meal flour. I’m using it for my strawberry smoothies and chocolate smoothies. Doing low carb and have to figure out the calories, carbs, etc. any suggestions anyone??
I don’t know…..I’ve thought about adding nutritional info….I’ll see if there’s a way to do that. Thanks. But not sure what I would do about taking out the solids…
I love the almond milk recipe! I now make it regularly in my vitamix. I read somewhere that you can dry the pulp in the oven and then make almond butter out of it. I tried last night, but it was just almond flour flying around in the vitamix! That’s fine…I’ll use it…but just wondering if anyone has had success making almond butter from the pulp. Or, maybe I should try it the other way around…grind almonds into butter, then make some milk from a little of that? Has anyone used the vitamix for nut butters? Any tips? Thanks!
I think you could for sure make milk from the butter. I do it all the time – you must have missed that post :). I’ve seen the pulp used for other things, but not for making butter. Here’s my recipe for Almond Butter.
You may have a problem making the almond butter from the pulp because in the process you have already extracted a good portion of the fat to make the milk. You can however use almond butter to make milk.
As the almonds get ground in either a high speed blender, or food processor, it releases the oils. This is what turns it from meal to butter. Even though I do have a Vitamix, that I use everyday, I use my Cuisinart food processor for making my almond butter. Because the Almonds need to be processed (blended) more than other nuts or legumes (ie peanuts, walnuts, even coconut,) I have found that the Vitamix heats it up so much that it is smoking before it is done. I dont get that with the food processor, but after using several different brands, the Cuisinart one was the only brand that I could go from whole dried (must be dehydrated) almonds to butter without having to grind it first.
Your vitamix is smoking or is it steam? I have thought about using the food processor just to keep the butter raw. Not sure if it technically would be in the food processor.
I followed the link to buy almonds you have posted on your site. The price per pound is good, but shipping is huge! Paying $20 for shipping raises the price too much. Do you know of any other places to buy almonds? So far the best price I have found is $8 per pound. For now, it is much less expensive to buy almond milk. Thanks for your help!
20 for shipping? how much were you buying?
Thanks for the fast reply! $20 was just for the smallest amount I could buy, 1 pound. If I entered more the shipping went up. It could be because I live in Missouri. I had to enter my zip code for it to calculate shipping to me.
So far I’m still using soy milk because it’s all I can find without carrageenan or fillers. I’ve been looking for a good price for almonds for months. So far the lowest price I’ve found will make homemade milk 3 times as expensive as store bought. I’m still looking…
I’m thinking if you order a decent amount the shipping will be more reasonable. I know shipping has gone up a TON. Try maybe ordering about 15-20 pounds and see what happens. I just ordered a lot from them and shipping was reasonable for a large amount.
Thanks for your help. I tried buying more and the shipping just kept going up. I’ll just keep looking for someplace.
Sure- you could call them. i was very pleased w/ the shipping rate I got. 🙂
Hello Adrienne
I am just wanting you to know that I absolutely love your FB updates and website!!! I am city girl born and bred and never have grown/made anything from scratch. However after reading your articles you have made me really motivated to be more frugal and healthy.
The reasons for this is that I have been advised I get Candida and need to eatch my wheat, dairy and sugar and because I became a mummy 6 monts ago and am pregnant with my next bubba – and so want my family and I to be super healthy and of course happy!!!
I love the fact that it is time saving – because if the ingredients are too hard to buy and it takes too long to make – my sleep deprived self would just pop it into the “too hard – later” basket, that I never get to empty.
So thanks again – now I just need to allocate some time to going through your site and knowing which ingredients to buy and which products I would like to make.
Keep up the fantastic work and thank you!!!!
This comment really warms my heart. Thank you so much! All starches can be an issue w/ candida and I am learning more and more than heavy metals are an issue as well. Did you see my post on Heavy Metal Toxicity?
Take care and hope to see you around again!