Non-Dairy Milk

Fast and easy homemade vegan milk

Probably the simplest animal ingredient to replace is milk. Endless non-dairy options are available in grocery stores, and - even better - most plant milks are really easy to make at home. Unless you’re straight up drinking it, you can make a variety of vegan milks with just two ingredients: water and your choice of nut, grain, or bean.

When baking something, whether sweet or savory, most plant milks are interchangeable, whereas stovetop cooking (soup, white sauce) requires a little more consideration. (Milk for drinking is considerably trickier since the flavor is so important, and that’s beyond the scope of this post.)

The two easiest milks to make are oat milk and what I call quick milk. For oat milk🍴, you don’t even have to soak the oats or strain the milk after - just blend rolled oats and water and you have milk. To make quick milk🍴, blend water with your favorite nut butter, and voilà.

The next easiest milk - and my personal favorite - is cashew milk🍴. Soak the nuts overnight, drain, and blend with fresh water for a creamy milk that is fantastic for things like Alfredo sauce🍴 - not only because of the wonderful taste and texture, but also because it thickens naturally when heated, so you don’t even need to make a roux. (I buy raw cashews in bulk🛒 and stash them in the freezer because I regularly make not only milk but also yogurt🍴 and cream cheese🍴.)

Almonds need to be blanched and soaked and almond milk🍴 needs to be strained, but the result is a mild and creamy milk that works well in any recipe. Same process for milk made from any other nut (pecans, peanuts, hazelnuts, Brazil) or seed (sunflower, sesame, hemp).

Coconut milk🍴 needs to be strained after blending, and also has a pronounced flavor that makes it less flexible than other milk recipes. It’s great in pumpkin-cream cheese muffins🍴 but probably not so good in mashed potatoes🍴.

The only milk I buy is soy milk🛒, because it’s the most time-consuming recipe🍴: soak, cook, and strain. (Though it’s not as creamy as cashew milk, I add soy milk to my coffee to get an extra bit of protein🙋‍♀️ in the morning.) You can make milk with other beans following the same recipe.

I haven’t made rice or quinoa milk yet, but again they are pretty simple: cook the grain, blend with water, strain.

Discover more plant-based dairy recipes📋 at The Veggie Table.