We haven’t used milk in our home for a while, for a variety of reasons.  We’ve searched for an alternative, mainly used for cereal.  We landed on rice milk for a while, until I recently learned that it’s the most processed of the options.  At this point, we switched to almond milk.   Admittedly, I wasn’t using it very much anyway because I’ve taken to eating my Ezekial cereal with local yogurt from the farmer’s market.  Despite this, I was still bothered by all the ingredients on the carton – there had to be a better way.  One day, I found it.

I decided to search for a recipe for almond milk, and I discovered how simple and versatile it was.  I put my VitaMix to the test, which I knew it would pass, but I had no idea how good the almond milk would taste!

You can make it in under 10 minutes (including the time it takes to pull a bag off the shelf or fill a bag from a bulk bin!) and there are 3 ingredients in ours: almonds, filtered water, and cinnamon.  You could add vanilla extract if you wanted, and you could even make naturally flavored chocolate or strawberry milk by adding some cacao powder or strawberry powder.

So here are the quick and easy steps to having fresh almond milk sitting in your fridge in no time:

1.  Soak 1 cup of almonds overnight (or during the day if you’re going to make it at night)

2.  Drain and rinse the almonds.

3.  Add them to the VitaMix with 5 cups of water and cinnamon to taste (or any other natural flavorings you want to add).

4.  Blend for approximately 2 minutes.

5.  Pour into a glass jar and put your  almond milk in the fridge!

We shake it up well before we use it, and I did not strain mine, but you could with a regular fine strainer or cheesecloth.

Suddenly, I’m using almond milk in everything and it’s making it taste so much better: smoothies are creamy, as is the quinoa, amaranth, millet porridge that I often make.  I used it in the chia pudding that I recently discovered as well.  It adds a depth of flavor to these recipes that is just so comforting!

If you try it out, I’d love to hear what you think and to know about any variations that you try.  Please share them here in the comments section.

Peace, love, and wellness,

Xandra