A product like almond milk is gaining in popularity. It is prepared from water and almonds. They can replace ordinary cow or goat milk, for example, during fasting or diet. In addition, the shelf life of such a drink is much longer. Today we will tell how experienced housewives make almond milk, share tips and secrets of cooking.
Features
Let’s say right away that almond milk is a great addition to coffee, cocktails, and liquors. It can also be added to seafood and fish dishes. However, it is worth warning that this product from nuts has a peculiar taste. The bitterness of almond milk may not appeal to everyone. Yes, and preparing a drink at home for a long time, since nuts need high-quality and long soaking. If the pros of the product outweigh the cons for you, then now we will tell you how to make almond milk at home.
The nutritional value
One serving of this healthy treat contains about 5 grams of protein, 6 grams of carbohydrates, 13 grams of fat. Calorie content per hundred grams is 139 kilocalories.
List of Essential Ingredients
To prepare you will need:
- a glass (240 g) of almonds (raw);
- three tablespoons (tablespoons) of water - water for soaking is not included here;
- if desired, you can add half a spoon (teaspoon) of vanillin and a couple of dates.
How to make almond milk at home?
The first step is soaking nuts. If time permits, it is better to leave them in the water for a day. If the nuts cannot be soaked at night, then the minimum soaking time is six hours. Note that this is a very important process that allows you to make a solid ingredient soft. Experienced housewives note that soaked almonds taste much more pleasant than fresh. Consequently, milk will acquire a more pleasant taste. Among adherents of proper nutrition and raw food diet, there is an opinion that the enzymatic activity of nuts becomes higher precisely after soaking. They are better absorbed by the body and give off much more nutrients.
We continue to tell how to make almond milk at home. At the second stage of preparation, the water is drained, and the nuts are sent to a blender. It is with the help of this kitchen assistant that the product is ground to a homogeneous mass. At this stage, you can pour three tablespoons of water and put chopped dates. By the way, they not only add sweets here, but also are an additional source of nutrients and vitamins.
The third stage of preparation will be filtering the resulting mass through a sieve or colander. There are several options for making almond milk. Some people like it when the drink comes in small pieces of crushed nuts. In this case we use a sieve. If the presence of nuts is undesirable, then it is better to take gauze in several additions. The yield of this recipe is three glasses.
Storage
Now you know how to make almond milk at home, the proportions of all ingredients are discussed, we will touch on the issue of storage. As mentioned above, almond milk is a product with a longer shelf life than any other milk. Typically, this is a period of three to six days. Almond milk is recommended to be stored exclusively in closed containers in the cold.
Coconut Almond Milk
In most cases, this ingredient is used to make smoothies, pastries, smoothies, and so on. Of course, almond milk should be a bit sweet. In the first recipe, we use dates for this. Now we’ll tell you how to make almond milk with coconut sugar. It not only adds sweets, being a natural sweetener, but also saturates the product with an additional coconut flavor and aroma.
Grocery list
You will need:
- 160 g of raw almonds (not fried, not salted, not baked or cut into wedges);
- 1.6 liters of water (together with soaking liquid);
- vanilla extract (optional);
- coconut sugar - two tablespoons (tablespoons).
Of kitchen utensils you will need: a stationary blender (not submersible), gauze in several additions or a very fine sieve.
Description of the cooking process
Experienced housewives are advised to definitely use some kind of sweetener, in our case it is coconut sugar. Milk does not need to be made too sweet. A pair of spoons will be enough to make the product tasty, but not cloying. You must admit that cow's milk is also slightly sweet, so there is nothing wrong with using sugar.
By the way, as a natural sweetener, you can use not only coconut sugar or dates, but also put honey, palm sugar, bananas, stevia extract, agave syrup, carob syrup or Jerusalem artichoke in the almond mass.
First of all, as in the previous recipe, we begin the cooking process by soaking the nuts. It is better if they are left overnight, but with a shortage of time, 6-8 hours will be enough. Drain the water. Be sure to wash the nuts under the tap. This can be done in the same container in which the soaking process took place. Rinsing nuts is important because when soaking a lot of chemicals and pesticides are released from them (if they were in them, but we don’t know this, but it’s worth avoiding the problem). We get rid of not only water, but also wash it off the surface of the nut.
We shift the main ingredient into the blender bowl. Add a few tablespoons of water, your chosen sweetener (in our case it will be coconut sugar). The whipping process should last at least 2 minutes. Sometimes housewives are advised to remove the peel from the nut, but this is not a mandatory process, the peel will not affect the taste in any way. And peeling a nut is not so simple.
Take a prepared storage container (it can be a jug or a glass jar), cover the neck with gauze, strain the milk. We squeeze the gauze, in which the cake is located, so as not to lose precious delicious drops of dairy product. The output should be about a liter of healthy and tasty almond milk. We store it in closed containers for 4-5 days.
Tips
So, we described in detail how experienced housewives make almond milk. Now you can pamper your household with a delicious treat. It remains to add only a few proven secrets and the right tips that are used by professional chefs and experienced housewives.
- After beating the nut mass, the cake remains. Throw it away is not worth it. It is great for making macaroons. Just mix the cake with banana or chopped dates, add some oatmeal and mix. It turns out great dough for delicious, nutritious, dietary baking. Cooking time and temperature are standard (180 degrees and 20-30 minutes).
- If you don’t have a measuring cup on hand, just put a large handful of nuts in a blender. By weight, this will be half a glass. Next, do the calculation yourself.
- Instead of gauze or sieve, you can use a special bag for nut milk.
- Knowing how to make almond milk at home, you can save a decent amount of money. As you know, products for vegetarians, vegans and raw foodists in modern supermarkets are quite expensive. If you want variety, then instead of almonds you can always take, for example, cashew nuts.
- And the last one. Do not be afraid and do not be lazy to experiment! Only through trial and error, world-famous chefs gave birth to their culinary masterpieces.