I don’t know about you, nut I’ve never been a fan of cow’s milk and the only occasion I would drink it is when I add a splash of it to my coffee.
In the last years, I’ve been trying different plant-based milk alternatives and I quite like them, especially hazelnut, almond, cashew and oat milk.
What I love about the one made of cashews is that it’s very creamy milk and makes my coffee taste really nice.
At the moment, we are on lockdown due to a coronavirus outbreak, so we spent all our time at home, and like a lot of people, I’m keener on experimenting in the kitchen.
When I made cashew milk, I was quite pleased with the result, so I decided to share it with you.
Making your own cashew milk at home is super easy.
All you need is raw cashew nuts, still water, a pinch of salt, food processor and a fine-mesh strainer or a straining cloth.
Ingredients for ca. 200 ml of homemade cashew milk:
100g cashews
200 ml still mineral water
Pinch of salt
Depending on the water quality where you have you can use tap water or filtered water.
I prefer mineral still water since where I live in London the tap water doesn’t taste very good, at least in my opinion, and this affects the taste of the nut milk as well.
But generally speaking, as long as the water is safe for drinking, feel free to use.
The first step is to soak the raw, unflavoured cashews a few hours in advance. Place the cashews in a bowl and add some (tap or filtered) water to cover them.
The longer you soak the nuts the softer and easier to blend they get.
By soaking them you activate the nuts, which means you make them easier to digest.
The recommended time to soak cashews is 3-5 hours, I usually soak them for 5 hours to make sure they get really soft.
Drain and rinse the nuts with fresh water and place them in a food processor/blender.
Add the water and the pinch of salt and blend for a couple of minutes.
If your blender has different speed levels, feel free to use high speed.
The higher the speed the less you need to strain afterwards.
Depending on the quality of your food processor, once the cashews and water are blended you might still have very small nut particles in the milk.
If you don’t like drinking it like this, you can sieve it through a strainer.
To strain the milk, I used a straining cloth (also known as cheesecloth).
But I think a very fine mesh strainer could work as well.
Let the milk run through the cloth and give it a squeeze at the end to use the most of it.
Once the liquid is through and squeezed out, you should have a few spoons of cashew paste left, like the one in the picture below.
This can be used in different ways so don’t throw it away yet.
Add it to your smoothies, porridge, cake batter or lentil dahl for some extra protein and creaminess.
Recently, I mixed it into brownies batter and it worked out very well.
If you can’t use it straight away, keep it in an airtight container in the fridge and use within 1-2 days.
Keep the cashew milk in the fridge, also air-tight, and use within a few days.
I make small batches to make sure I use it quickly, since, obviously, I don’t add any stabilizers.
It doesn’t matter if you live dairy-free or just love cashews, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the cashew milk.
A very good alternative to dairy milk it’s just creamy and delicious and so much better than the store-bought one.
It’s a great addition to coffee and tea, but also as a drink on its own. You can add a few drops of vanilla extract or a small squeeze of maple syrup to sweeten it.
Other nut milks are made in the same principle – soak, blend, strain and enjoy.
Find out more about activated nuts and their health and taste benefits here.
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