Ingredients:

• 1 cup raw almonds
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup ice
• pinch of sea salt

Tools:

• Mason Jar
• Kick ass blender – if no kick ass blender will just take longer
• Nut milk bag – worth the investment if you’re going to do this more than once. If no nut milk bag you can use cheese cloth. You will have to squeeze pretty hard so be careful not to burst it.
• measuring cup
• colander
• bowl to strain milk into
• glass vessel to hold milk

Steps:

1. Combine almonds and pinch of salt in mason jar, then fill with water. Let the almonds soak overnight in the refrigerator.  The almonds are good for you, but soaking them softens the skins and makes the protein more easily digested.

2. Drain almonds in colander and put in the blender with water (3 cups) and cup of ice. We are using ice to keep the temperature of the mixture cold; friction from the blender will heat the milk, and we don’t want to cook the fat molecules in the almonds.   When heat alters the composition of the fats they become damaging free radicals.
3. Crank the blender on high and let it rip!  If you have a kick-ass blender it will take a couple minutes.  If your blender is less powerful will take a little longer.
4. Strain your almond milk through a nut milk bag.  You will have to get your hands dirty here to squeeze the daylights out of the almond pulp catching every last drop of the milk in a bowl. You want your pulp inside the bag to be as dry as possible.

Now you have almond milk.  You can flavour the milk any way you like. You can put the milk back in the blender and blend with dates, vanilla, honey and cinnamon.  You can make chocolate milk by adding cocao powder or nibs with it.  The possibilities are endless.  I like to leave the milk plain and add additional flavour when needed.  It is super frustrating when you need some almond milk for a recipe and all you have in the fridge is chocolate flavoured.

Store in a glass jar for up to 5 days in the refrigerator. I freeze the extra in cubes and pop out when I need small amounts.

What do I do with almond pulp?

• put it in a smoothie
• make crackers out of it
• dry it and make almond meal
• use as a grain free binder
• put in grain free pancakes