Why make your own nutmilk?
- Many store bought nut milk brands contain additives to prolong their shelf life and to help keep a consistent texture like carrageenan which is destructive to the digestive system and causes inflammation in your body. Carrageenan is hiding in many store bought nut milks, dairy-free ice creams and dairy products. For example, So Delicious is a popular brand in the dairy free world which has carrageenan in their nut milks and DF ice cream products. Its safer to make your own nut milk (and nice cream-link to nice cream recipes) to avoid consuming additives.
- Making your own nut milk has a creamier texture and tastes better.
- Just like juicing, there is leftover pulp after milking your own nuts. Another reason to make your own Nutmilk is that there are multiple uses for the leftover nut pulp, which I get into below.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups raw unsalted organic hazelnuts
- 6 cups filtered of purified water
- 2 tbsp local raw honey or manuka honey
- 1 vanilla bean or 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp raw cacao powder
- 1 frozen banana
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Directions:
1) Soak raw hazelnuts and vanilla bean (if using bean and not extract) in filtered water for 8 hours.
2) Discard soaking water. Rinse the hazelnuts and the vanilla bean.
3) Place soaked hazelnuts, honey, vanilla bean and 6 cups of water in a blender. Cover and blend on high for 1-2 minutes. It will be milky and have a bit of foam on the top.
4) Strain milk through a nut bag. I use Ellie‘s Best.They are good quality and BPA free. If you order from them, for 10% off, use Coupon Code: Deanna10 at checkout. They also have a free nut milk recipes E-book on their site.
5) Add raw cacao powder, cinnamon, banana to the Nutmilk and blend together. Note: I have seen people add the cacao/cinnamon before using the Nutmilk as well (in step 3).
- I do not recommend using the cheesecloth, strainer or any other method. These methods are messy and require multiple passes to strain out the bits. Also, it is not as creamy as when I use a good nut milk bag.
What to do with leftover pulp?
- Add it to smoothies or your morning oatmeal
- Add it to dips, homemade granola, to the batter of your cookies or muffin
- Make crackers
- Dehydrate it and blend it to make almond meal
- Add it to DIY cosmetics, Ex: body scrubs, face masks. See my DIY Hazelnut Body Polish
- Compost it.
Check out my Instagram @dshamptonorganics for more.
References
“Our Nut Milk Bag.” Ellie’s Best. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2017.
Yang, Bo, Sumit Bhattacharyya, Robert Linhardt, and Joanne Tobacman. “Exposure to Common Food Additive Carrageenan Leads to Reduced Sulfatase Activity and Increase in Sulfated Glycosaminoglycans in Human Epithelial Cells.” Biochimie. U.S. National Library of Medicine, June 2012. Web. 08 Mar. 2017. Web here