Everyone loves almond milk, and you would think that it would contain only two ingredients: almonds and water — which my recipe has!

Well, compare those ingredients with the ones you get at the store, and you will see a plethora of chemical-based/preservative ingredients,. Ingredients such as carrageenan, potassium citrate, calcium carbonate and D-Alpha-Tocopherol, not to mention anywhere from 12 to 15 ingredients for something that actually only takes two.

Ingredients in the popular Almond Breeze brand of almond milk

Ingredients in Silk brand almond milk

So, now that you have seen the unnatural ingredients in your store-bought “natural” almond milk, let’s go make real almond milk that is cruelty and puss free!

You will need:

– 1 cup organic almonds

– 8 cups filtered water

The night before, put your almonds in bowl with four cups of the water, and let them soak overnight. The next day, pour out the water and rinse out your almonds.

Put your soaked almonds into your high-powered blender along with the 4 remaining cups of filtered water:

BEFORE

Blend on high for a couple minutes, making sure the nuts are completely pulverized, like so:

AFTER!

Once the nuts and water are blended, you have two options:

1) Voila! You are done! You can put your milk in jars, and store them in the fridge. Or,

2) Take a cheese cloth, nut milk bag, any large piece of straining cloth or a fine mesh strainer. Pour the milk through the strainer or bag, separating the almond pulp from the rest of the milk. This makes the milk smooth, clean and without any texture.

I personally don’t mind the texture, so I skip the straining part, pour the milk into my jars and I’m done! Separation is natural, as you can see below, and the milk will separate even if it is strained. No problem at all, just shake up the jars well and you will have lovely milk again!

LOVELY!

There are also a couple of awesome variations that you can do for the almond milk. To your almonds and water in the blender, you can add one or all of the below:

– 1 tsp cinnamon

– 4 pitted dates (to sweeten)

– 1 tbsp raw honey

Another AMAZING variation is to blend your almonds with 4 cups coconut water instead of regular water. This is by far my favorite way, as the cocout water in itself is sweet, so you don’t have to add any additional flavorings or sweetners.

Enjoy! Let’s go make a frozen berry smoothie with our almond milk now!