Making oat milk

Happy Monday, as most of you know, I’ve been very much into sustainable living and all that jazz. One of the things that can help you be more sustainable is by making household products yourself. I’ve made soap, shampoo, conditioner, etc. but I wanted to take a more foody approach this time so I made oat milk! You can make milk from anything these days but one of the most sustainable kinds of milk to drink is oat milk [it uses the least amount of water to make] and I had yet to find a brand or type I’ve enjoyed, so instead, I made my own. I scoured the internet for recipes and didn’t find one I particularly liked so in true Alicia fashion, I wung It and made my own recipe.

I wanted to share that this experience was far from the many photos I see on Instagram of people holding one of those antique milk jugs filled with oat milk and sipping away.

First and foremost, I would like to say that I would not recommend using a food processor. You HAVE to use a blender. I swear by my food processor and use it to make ice cream, smoothies, protein bars, etc. However, when it comes to blending liquid, do NOT use the food processor. I turned that bad boy on and there was oaty water all over the place. While my food processor is bigger than my blender, I should have just made multiple small batches in the blender rather than one big batch in my food processor because I wasted over half of it as it spewed all around my kitchen [and onto me].

Nevertheless, it did taste good and I’d make it again just in my blender because then hopefully the oats would grind up and mix in with the water a bit more than they did as well to make thicker and creamier oat milk [I want to put it in my coffee] which is what I was going for.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of oats [use more if you want it thick and creamy]
  • 4 cups of water
  • 2-3 pitted dates [depending on desired sweetness]
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla [I prefer my dairy-free milk to be vanilla flavored. If you don’t, you can omit this or add another flavor]
  • Shirt or cheesecloth [I used a both in my process and found an old -but clean- shirt can be much more useful because no oats get through the shirt whereas when I used the cheesecloth, a little did get through]
  • Jar [I used a quart ball jar]

Directions:

  1. Place all food ingredients in the blender and blend until white.
  2. Add more oats or more water until you reach your desired consistency
  3. Place shirt or cheesecloth over the jar and slowly add milk onto the cheesecloth/shirt until there is no more liquid in your blender.
  4. Enjoy!

It’s quite simple [when you know what you’re doing] so I went through the troubles of being an idiot so you all don’t have to!

Have you ever made dairy-free milk? How did it go?
❤ Alicia