Go a little nuts

Nut milks and have steadily grown in popularity with the trend toward minimizing animal products, and they’ve long been a boon to people who suffer from lactose intolerance. However, if you’ve read the ingredient list for most nut milks (almond being the most popular), you will likely find a host of added ingredients including sugar, flavorings, and emulsifiers. Reading this laundry list of components may lead you to believe that making this product would be difficult, but it turns out that making nut milk is easy and only requires two ingredients: nuts and water.

The basic formula is to soak the nuts in water for several hours, then blend them together and strain. You can use a variety of nuts and change the ratio of nuts to water to make your drink thicker or thinner. The leftover nut meal can be used as is in smoothies or dried to use in a variety of baked goods.

Chicken breasts with green chile-almond cream sauce
Almond milk creamed spinach
Pear and almond tart
Flourless orange cake

Once you’ve mastered almond milk, your next assignment (should you accept it) is orgeat, an almond-based syrup used in cocktails, most famously in Mai Tais. Orgeat follows the same basic procedure as homemade almond milk, but sugar and orange flower water are added after the milk is finished. Adding a bit of vodka helps the orgeat last a bit longer, but it would be easy to use in a hurry with these classic and modern drinks containing orgeat syrup. Cheers!