HOW-TO MAKE ALMOND MILK | Clean & Delicious

Hey guys it's Dani. Now I am not a vegan, not a vegetarian, not dairy-free. As a matter of fact I don't really have any specific dietary restrictions but I do believe that everybody can benefit from more plant-based nutrition in their diets and almond milk is a great alternative to traditional milk. So for this how-to I'm showing you how to make homemade almond milk. Before you make almond milk you need to soak one cup of raw preferably organic almonds in some cold filtered water. You need just enough water to cover your almonds and the goal is to let it sit anywhere between 8 and 48 hours. So what I usually do is I set it up after dinner or right before I go to bed and this way when I wake up in the morning my almonds are ready to go. What you'll notice is that once your almonds have soaked they'll absorb some of that water and get really plump just like these guys. So what you want to do is drain out the soaking liquid and then get the almonds into a blender. Now for every one cup of almonds that you have you're going to need four cups of water and again just make sure that it's a water you'd be comfortable drinking. Now technically speaking these are the only two ingredients you need to make almond milk but I like to add a little bit of flavor and sweetness to my almond milk so I also add one teaspoon of vanilla extract and one pitted date. Now dates are naturally super sweet so this is going to sweeten up our almond milk without having to use any processed sugars. And then just one little baby kiss of salt which may seem weird but the salt really brings out the sweetness of the vanilla and the date in the almond milk and it just takes it right over the top. Then pop a lid on and you're just going to blend this up for about a minute a minute and a half or until all the almonds have broken down and you see that you've got a nice light creamy frothy almond milk. Now remember you can play with the flavorings as well if you like a chocolate almond milk you could add in a little cocoa powder if you want it all to be a little sweeter you could throw in an extra date or two. I would recommend experimenting a little bit until you find the flavor that is perfect for you. Perfect! It's light, it's frothy, it's exactly what I'm looking for. So what we need to do now is separate the almond milk from the almond pulp so what I do is I take a fine mesh strainer lay that on top of a four cup measuring cup and then line it with a piece of cheesecloth and then slowly but surely you want to pour the almond milk on top of the cheesecloth through the strainer and what you'll see is that all of the milk is going to drip to the bottom and all of the almond meal is going to stay up in the cheesecloth and feel free to grab a spatula and just help it along a bit then once it looks like it's drained out as much as it's going to on its own pull up all the sides of the cheesecloth and then just strain out every last bit that you can get and then what you're left with is this light frothy creamy fresh almond milk. It's light, bright, clean, fresh, so much better than anything you're going to buy at the grocery store and too easy not to try. From here store in any airtight container that you have. I love these little jars they're like little milk jars that come with a lid and they'll last in your fridge three to five days. Now as for the almond pulp aka the almond meal this is the protein and the fat from the almonds and there's a lot you can do with this. You can use it in baking. I showed you guys how to use it in almond pancakes. You can also toast this up in the oven and then you have a nice light toasty almond crunch that you can put on top of oatmeal or on top of your yogurt. Lots of different things to do and if you've ever made almond milk yourself I'm curious to know what do you do with the leftover almond meal? Let's hear all about it down in the comments below. For more simple and nutritious recipes tips and ideas be sure you come on over to cleananddelicious.com where you can print all the recipes, save your favorites right to your very own personal recipe box, and subscribe to my newsletter. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Dani Spees and I'll see you next time with another how-to. Hey guys it's Dani now from the top except I do believe from the top. Now ideally you want to let this go from the top. From the top top? Too slow. It's okay. From the top.