Welcome to the first episode of Cooking with John & Sally Chow! OK, making home-made almond milk isn’t really cooking, but it’s close enough. It’s also great daddy daughter bonding time.
I decided to make my own almond milk because I no longer drink dairy milk, and I couldn’t pronounce many of the ingredients in the store-bought almond milk. Also, the almonds used by Silk, and other brands, are all pasteurized. The almonds I used are raw, organic, and unpasteurized.
By law, almonds grown in the US has to be pasteurized before it’s shipped to stores. However, there is a loophole that allows you to buy unpasteurized almonds (up to 100 pounds per day) direct from a farm. I got my almonds from Bremner Farms in Chico, California. Their price with shipping is a little more than raw organic unpasteurized almonds from Spain, but I rather support a local US farmer.
To make your own home-made almond milk, you will need the following ingredients:
- Almonds
- Filtered water
- Villania extract (optional)
- A sweeter like dates or Agave Nectar (optional)
- Pinch of sea salt (optional)
While a high-speed blender like a Vitamix or Blendtec will make short work of the almonds, you can get away with using a normal blender to make almond milk. You can use cheese cloth to strain the milk, but I prefer a nut milk bag, since it’s was designed for that very purpose.
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Not only is the almond milk I make at home better for you than the store-bought brands, I think it’s less expensive too. Because there are no preservatives in the home-made milk, it will last only three to five days in the fridge, so don’t go making ten gallons at a time unless you have a huge family.