The trend of making nut milk at home is getting hotter and hotter in recent years. Speaking of its taste and nutrient portion, nobody can’t deny how delicious and nutritious this drink is. Besides, vegans are also crazy of it because nut milk is entirely able to alter cow’s milk or animal’s milk.
I myself prefer to make nut milk by my Cuisinart Blender (just a personal choice!). However, if you have a slow juicer or intend to get one to add-in your must-have kitchen tool collection, making this drink is as easy as a piece of cake.
Following my guidance:
Tool
Slow juicer:
Considered as the best performance machine within three types of juicer, the slow or the cold press juicer helps to extract almost nutrients in nuts, veggies and fruits while enable to keep the juice last longer.
(While the fast juicer’s juice can hold the taste, flavor and nutrients within a day, the slow juicer’s can keep it up to 3 days. You can take a look at my article to know more about it.)
Mine is a Hurom Slow Juicer, but you can definitely use yours, or pick another brand, like Omega, SimpleTaste, SKG and Aicok.
If yours don’t have a fine strainer, I highly recommend to opt for one to get finer drink because normally, many juicers come up with the ordinary strainer, like Hurom.
Colander or canvas filter bag
This is just an optional tool. If you want to make truly fine nut milk, add-in a colander to put on the mouth of the juicer’s jar/cup.
Ingredients
Any kind of grain can be made with a slow juicer.
Nuts that can be made milk include almonds, walnuts, cashew nuts, pumpkin seeds, peanuts (roasted before being juiced). However, with those small ones such as sesame and millet, you should juice them because they are too small to grind.
The best kinds of nut to make milk is the raw ones that are not salted or marinated butter or anything. Check the quality of seeds, some are very susceptible to foul-smelling like walnuts and peanuts. Soak together with water for softening.
Beans (Green beans, red beans, soy beans, black beans, chicken beans, etc.): soak and cook them before juicing.
Corn: Freshly cooked
With raw materials such as pumpkin and lotus seeds, if you want to use a slow press to make milk, it is a bit wasted, because with the slow press, to juice pumpkin and lotus seeds, they must be raw to deliver the standard toughness to juice. If already being cooked then it is too soft to juice out. My recommendation is just to puree or blend them.
In my opinion, slow juicers are just suitable for making milk from seeds or nuts, but not ideal for grain or bean.
The optional ingredients
Sweetener
Palm fruits: Remove the seeds, soak in warm water to soften them. Palm fruits widely are sold at many supermarkets and groceries. Its taste is relatively sweet (very sweet if eaten) but are natural sweeteners for nut milk or smoothies. Or, you can use them as a delicious dessert. The best thing about this ingredient is its nearly non-smell to avoid being over the other ingredients.
Fig: Also sold in dry form, you can easily find them packed in the US nylon packaging.
The other dried fruits can be tested to sweeten your nut milk.
Maple Syrup: A sweetener that looks like honey but does not have sour taste like honey.
Agave Syrup: Is a kind of syrup extracted from the Blue Agave that grows in Southern Mexico.
Honey: Not all drinks can be suitably sweetened by honey. Because the honey comes up with slightly sour taste and its smell is quite dominant. But within all sweeteners, it’s a more popular option and easier to buy.
Apple Juice: When using fresh fruits for sweeteners, milk should only be drunk during the day. If left to the next day, it does not often taste good or its taste is not entirely kept.
Others (for extra flavors or nutrition)
Cinnamon Powder: If you use cinnamon powder, just whisk up with the finished milk. In addition, you can use the cinnamon bar. Remember to thoroughly soak the cinnamon before at least 4-5h to make the cinnamon softer, then rinse and put a small piece into the nut milk. Be aware of just adding a little amount because cinnamon is very fragrant.
Cocoa nibs: To make chocolate milk, I usually use Cocoa nibs. This is a what’s inside a mashed cocoa bean but take note that it’s quite different from the chocolate we usually eat. Cocoa beans are rich in antioxidants for those natural chocolate drinks, and of course are good for health without having to worry about sugar or calories. Remember to soak them to soften, usually in 4-5 hours, before juicing with other nuts when making milk. Due to its bitterness sensitive, it is suitable for those sweeteners such as palm fruits or bananas. Each time, just use 1 tablespoon of cocoa nibs and test for the best taste.
Vanilla: Do not choose vanilla essential oils because their quality isn’t guaranteed. I usually use vanilla fruit, which is sold in some supermarkets. Vanilla is very fragrant, just cut a short piece of 1-2cm long, soak it for a few hours and juice (also take advantage of the water that you use to soak the vanilla as well). Each liter of milk needs only half of a vanilla.
My general formula to make nut milk
The general formula for nut milk is 100-120gr of nuts or seeds mixing with 1 liter of water, which produces more than 1 liter of nut milk.
Step 1: Seeds/nuts are soaked in water for several hours. Depending on the type of seeds that soak for either a long or short time. Consult the time for soaking nuts/seeds as well as some delicious milk recipes here. Some nuts can be peeled off (like walnuts and almonds) while the others don’t need to, based on your preference.
Step 2: After soaking, drain for only the soaked seeds, pour it into the water. Then, gradually transfer the mixture into your slow juicer like when you do with veggies or fruits. Choose the smallest shutter level (with Hurom, choose Closed level while with other juicers, press the sealing silicon at the bottom of the machine). So, it will juice the seeds/nuts with water better to extract a white milky juice.
You can pour the extract liquid or pulp liquid into the machine to juice it one for time so that you can take advantage of as much nutrients in the nuts/seeds as possible. If you want the nut milk more smoothly, then add a small strainer or colander to the juicer’s cup, just below the tap of the machine. With almond and soybeans milk, if you want them to be smoother, pour it through a canvas filtered bag.
Step 3: Enjoy it. Milk from the seeds or nuts does not need to be boiled again. Drinking nut milk not only keeps all nutrients, but also fast. If anyone feels uncomfortable with its taste or smell, then just warm it up / sterilize but remember to cook on small heat and avoid boiling, because nut milk is easy to be precipitated when boiled.
In generally, making nut milk by a slow juicer is truly convenient without filtered. However, according to my experience, the best nut milk should be made with a blender (higher capacity, the better) because the texture is better, fluffier, tastier and can combine with more ingredients. However, it takes a little extra time for filtering out the liquid to get the smoothest drink.
