Almond milk is a healthy and yummy dairy-free milk alternative. It's my favorite!
When purchasing almond milk at the store, look for organic and unsweetened. When learning a little bit more about food processing and packaging - most, if not all, of the almond milk available at the store is pasteurized. Pasteurization involves heating a product to a specific temperature for a period of time to kill enough pathogenic bacteria to make the product shelf stable. Refrigerated almond milk is pasteurized too. This destroys many heat sensitive vitamins and enzymes in the process and damages any healthy fats that were once present in almonds.
The best almond milk is the kind you make yourself! If you haven’t tried it, you’re missing out! Homemade almond milk takes moments to prepare, and is much creamier, nuttier, and less "watered down" from a store bought product.
Almond milk is great on it’s own, but I love it in my coffee in the morning, or a afternoon smoothie.
Ingredients
Makes about 4 cups of almond milk
- 2 cup almonds (soaked overnight)
- 4 cups water
- seeds from 1 vanilla bean or ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 dates
Directions
Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth. Drain entire mixture through a nut milk bag or cheesecloth. Store in a glass jar. Play with the amounts of vanilla, cinnamon and dates if you want a little more flavor!
Banana and Carrot Almond Milk
INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup home-made almond milk
- 1 ripe banana
- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 cup of freshly squeezed carrot/ginger juice (from about 1 lb carrots and a small knob of ginger)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Blend the almond milk, banana and cinnamon.
- Add the carrot ginger juice and stir to combine. Garnish with more cinnamon.